


A Malec Alphabet

by Haleyb333



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-05-31 20:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 50,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6486454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haleyb333/pseuds/Haleyb333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Malec alphabet! As I go through the alphabet, each chapter will be about a word that starts with that letter. The chapters are one-shots that are unrelated to one another (unless otherwise specified).<br/>New chapters will be posted every day!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A: Accident

Magnus was curled up on the couch awaiting Alec's return from the mission he, Jace, and Isabelle were currently on. He was currently thinking about getting up and actually going to bed for once, like Alec asked him to every time he had to spend all night out on a mission. The only reason he was considering this, however, was because that particular night, he was curled up on the couch in one of Alec's sweaters, and he didn't relish the idea of Alec seeing this.

The only thing keeping him from getting up was the fact that there was currently a slightly drunk Catarina passed out across his bed, as well as the fact that the Chairman was sprawled across his chest. Chairman Meow somehow always seemed just as nervous as Magnus when Alec went on missions, and Magnus's only explanation was that the cat's love was less of a cat's love and more of a human's.

Just as Magnus could feel himself falling asleep, he heard an ungodly noise from outside the apartment. At first, he thought of leaving it alone, knowing that the only person in the universe how could ever break through his wards would be his own father. Then, his head began racing as he heard Jace's voice just outside the door, all but screaming, "Magnus, let us in. Now!"

Ignoring Catarina, who had just rushed into the living room at all of the noise, Magnus sprinted for the door as quickly as possible. His worst nightmare seemed to come true as he opened the door to see Jace and Isabelle barely holding up a clearly unconscious Alec. For a moment, Magnus stopped short at the sight of Alec, completely pale, covered in blood, limp in his siblings' arms. Then, Catarina pushed past him, any sign of her earlier drunkenness completely gone.

All Magnus could do was slowly turn around, watching as Catarina made a table appear out of thin air, motioning for Jace and Isabelle to place Alec on it. The only thing that made Magnus move was the fact that, once placed on the table, Alec turned his head, moaning in pain. What made Magnus move was the fact that Alec's moan of pain sounded vaguely like his name.

"Magnus, I need you to let go of Alec," Magnus heard Catarina's voice, he realized that she was only asking him because she needed him to do something to help Alec, but he couldn't seem to make himself do what she was asking. "Jace, get Magnus out of this room, please." Magnus considered fighting this, but he allowed Jace to pull his hand out of Alec's and lead him out of the room, knowing Catarina wouldn't let anything happen to Alec if she could help it.

It was until Magnus found himself out of sight of Alec and alone with Jace that he thought he was calm. Once he could no longer see Alec, however, he found that he was suddenly screaming at Jace. "What the hell happened? You're his parabatai. Aren't you supposed to be looking out for him? Why is he in there dying? What have you done?"

For a moment, Jace remained silent, looking at him as though he was in shock himself. "Is that Alec's sweater?" was all that he said, his voice much lower than it typically was. This only seemed to enrage Magnus more.

"That is very far from the point, Jace. What the hell has happened to Alexander? If you don't think I won't hurt whoever is at fault for this, you're deadly wrong." Magnus could hear the ice in his voice, but he was far from caring.

Inexplicably, Jace chuckled slightly before responding, making Magnus all the angrier. "That would be pretty counterproductive, Magnus, considering the fact that what happened was ninety-nine percent Alec's fault. He tripped over his own two feet. Izzy and I simply couldn't reach him fast enough; it was an accident, Magnus. Accidents happen, so please sit down and breathe."

Naturally, this only made things worse in Magnus's mind. Of course he had chosen the world's seemingly clumsiest Shadowhunter to call his own. "Accident?" He heard his own voice raise a few octaves, but he kept speaking anyway. "There aren't supposed to be accidents; you're Shadowhunters. You should have been by his side; you should have covered him. The last thing that should have happened to him was him ending up in that room dying."

For several long moments, Jace simply stared at him, head cocked to one side, an unreadable expression on his face. "Magnus," he began speaking again slowly, as if carefully picking his words. "You know you're being slightly ridiculous. You know I did everything I could to protect him. You're just angry because you're afraid Alec doesn't know how you really feel about him."

At that, Magnus sat down on his bed, the weight of Jace's words hitting him full force. "What do you mean?" was his only response, although he knew exactly what Jace meant already.

"I mean that you're afraid that he has no idea that you're in love with him, and you're scared that he's going to leave you without ever knowing that." As Jace finished speaking, he moved to sit on the floor near the bed, a smug smile on his face.

Magnus could hardly admit to himself that what Jace had just said was true. The terror in his voice, the terror that had taken over his heart when he saw Alec wounded, he knew it was all due to his love for Alec, a love that still remained unspoken.

"I won't say anything else, Magnus, I'll just sit here until we can go see him. But before that, let me say that you need to tell him. Tell him you love him because he deserves to know that." Magnus slowly shut his eyes as Jace finally finished speaking. He leaned over, burying his face in his hands, hands that were covered by Alec's sweater.

Just as he did so, just as he was about to relax for a few seconds, he heard the door creak open. "Magnus?" an all too familiar voice asked from the doorway. "Is what he just said true? Do you love me?"

Magnus looked up with weary eyes to see a slightly weak looking Alec leaning on the doorframe, looking at him with a lingering question in his eyes. Standing up, Magnus walked slowly toward Alec, taking his hands and allowing the other man to use his weight for support.

"Of course it is, Alexander." When Magnus spoke, he heard how soft his voice was, he recognized how vulnerable he was about to become, but as he looked into Alec's eyes, he felt himself relax in a way that only Alec was ever able to make him, and he continued anyway. "What he said was far too correct. I'm desperately in love with you, and I am nowhere near ready to lose you. Now, please, sit down, you're weak."

To his surprise, Alec allowed himself to be lead to the bed, and Magnus sat down beside him, keeping hold of his hands the entire time. When Magnus looked into Alec's eyes, everything seemed to melt away, making him feel as though the only people left in the world were himself and Alec.

"I should have told you before now, Alexander. But I am so in love with you it often takes my breath away." He paused for a second, considering his next words very carefully. Before he could speak again, however, Alec spoke instead.

"Magnus, I'm fine. I'm honestly fine now; Catarina fixed me. It was an honest mistake, and I'm sorry for it. But I need you to know that I'm in love with you, too." At that, Magnus found a smile on his face for the first time that night.

Softly reaching over, Magnus wiped the hair out of Alec's eyes. "I have a question for you, though, if you don't mind, that is." Magnus simply nodded, suddenly afraid of what might be asked of him. "When did you first realize that you were in love with me?"

Smiling softly, Magnus responded with a gentleness that seemed distant from his usual self. "I fell in love with you by accident, Alexander. You caught me by surprise; not that I mind." He leaned over to quickly and gently kiss Alec before continuing. "I think the moment I first realized it was about a month ago. There was nothing particularly special about the moment. We were cooking dinner together, and you were laughing about something I had said, and I began thinking about how breathtaking your smile was. And things just went from there."

Alec squeezed Magnus's hand and looked as though he was about to speak, but before he could, Jace began laughing. When they both turned to look at him, he stared back with a terribly amused expression. "I'm sorry," he said, holding up his hands. "It's just that I really want to respond, 'I thought there weren't supposed to be accidents, Magnus,' but I'm trying horribly to refrain."

Even as Alec looked at him in confusion, Magnus reached over to pick up a pillow and chuck it, albeit lovingly, at Jace, a smile adorning his own face.


	2. B: Baggage

Alec rolled over in the middle of the night, his arms unconsciously searching for Magnus. When his arms found nothing but the bed beside of him, it woke him, the unexpected cold and space hitting him hard. At first, Alec considered rolling back over and going to sleep once more, seeing as this was only one of the first few times he had stayed the night, he didn't want to overstep himself.

But as he closed his eyes again, he knew that Magnus was up for a reason, and a reason other than the bathroom or a drink, so he rolled over once more, sitting up and stretching. He smiled as the Chairman gave an indignant snort, obviously not appreciative of being woken up.

He thought of pulling on a shirt, but then shrugged it off and simply picked up the Chairman and padded into the living room, leaving his "outfit" as his boxers alone. Magnus was sitting on the couch, uncharacteristically curled up in a blanket, knees pulled close to his chest. He looked up as Alec walked in, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips as he saw Alec holding the Chairman. His expression was unreadable, something that slightly set Alec off.

"What are you doing up, Magnus?" Alec knew his voice was terribly soft, he knew that Magnus often didn't care for his gentle tone, found that it often grated on his nerves, but it was something that Alec could rarely keep himself from using, especially with people he loved.

As Alec sat down beside of him, Magnus tried to force more of a smile, something else that began to worry at Alec's mind. He could see just how fake the smile was, could read past the smile to the emotions he was trying so desperately to mask. The only problem was that Alec couldn't tell exactly what emotions those were, he could see the urgency, but he couldn't tell just how Magnus was feeling, and it was enough to drive him mad.

"No reason really, Alexander. I've just been doing a bit of thinking, that's all." Alec could easily sense that Magnus had put up his guard, was trying to keep any emotion out of his voice. He placed the Chairman on his lap and reached over to take hold of one of Magnus's hands, giving it a gentle squeeze as Magnus looked away from him once more.

"I'm not going back to bed, Magnus, you should know that." Magnus continued to look pointedly away from him. He reached over to run his fingers through Magnus's hair before continuing. "There's something troubling you, so please don't shut down, please don't turn me away. I'm here and I love you, so talk to me."

At that, Magnus sighed, but he still didn't turn to look at Alec. "You're always so gentle, Alexander. Sometimes it's startling that a Shadowhunter could ever be so gentle." Alec smiled slightly, appreciating what Magnus was saying, but knowing that he was attempting to distract Alec from the conversation at hand.

Instead of asking Magnus another question, Alec simply remained silent. Somehow, he had come to understand Magnus better than he had ever expected, to understand him in a way that startled him, in a way that was very foreign to him. He knew that Magnus needed time, that if he simply waited, Magnus would continue speaking eventually. "You know what, Alexander?" His voice was filled with emotion when he did finally speak again.

"You know me so well it scares me sometimes," he said, echoing Alec's own thoughts. "If you were anyone else, I could very easily hide this. But with you, it's so," he paused for a moment, obviously searching for the perfect word. "Different," he finished, settling on a word that seemed less than perfect.

"How so?" Alec asked, feeling as though he already knew what Magnus was going to say but wanting to hear it from him nonetheless.

Magnus sighed, looking as though he was assessing the situation. "I could never hide anything from you, especially if I tried. You see through that kind of trying faster than anyone I've ever met." He finally turned to look Alec directly in the eyes, and Alec could see how tired he was. "But the biggest difference with you is that I don't want to hide it. I don't want to hide anything from you. You make me feel so safe, Alexander."

For a moment, Magnus turned away, his eyes closing for several seconds. When he turned back, he took a deep breath, as though the conversation was painful, but he realized he needed to continue. "You make me feel comfortable in a way that I've never felt before. And sometimes I simply don't know how to react to that."

This time, Alec smiled wider, a genuine smile, the type that Magnus always seemed to make so easy for him. "Don't try so hard at figuring it out, Magnus," his voice was still terribly gentle, but he knew it was something he couldn't help. "Just be yourself. Just be the man I love, that's all I ask."

It was Magnus's turn to smile this time, but his troubled look was still anchored beneath it. "I come with a lot of baggage, Alexander, 400 years of it makes a lot. That's the problem here." Alec worked on autopilot for a moment, not really registering what he was doing until it was done. He took Magnus's hand and gave it a gentle kiss. Looking up at Magnus, Alec watched as his expression turned from one of apprehension to one consumed by love.

"I know you have a lot of baggage, Magnus. But you don't always have to carry it alone. Not any more, that is." As soon as Alec had finished speaking, Magnus reached over to kiss him. The kiss was so passionate, yet so gentle, that it overwhelmed Alec at first.

When Magnus pulled away, he surprised Alec by talking once more. "I woke up because I had a dream. And not one of those that my father sends me. Just a dream. But it was a horrid dream nonetheless. About you." Alec simply waited, an eyebrow raised, not wanting to scare Magnus into stopping.

"If I'm being totally honest, I'm scared of losing you." Magnus turned away from him then, a slight hitch in his voice. "And it's not even about your mortality any longer. That's something I've come to terms with." He paused then, his face overcome with the pain of what he was saying. "I'm afraid you'll leave me willingly."

At that, he got up from the couch, obviously wishing that he could erase everything that he had just said. He headed toward the kitchen, his head and shoulders slumped in a way that made Alec's heart ache.

Alec waited for a few moments, trying to give Magnus a bit of space. When he entered the kitchen, he saw Magnus fumbling over coffee, his hands shaking visibly. Alec strode over in only a few swift movements, taking the cup Magnus was holding from his hands and placing it on the counter, turning Magnus around while placing his arms around Magnus as well. Magnus seemed startled at the fluidity of it all, at how forceful Alec was being with him, but he didn't protest.

"I want you to listen to me, Magnus, and I want you to listen to me very well." Magnus's eyebrows raised slightly, but he remained silent. "You're worried, and I understand that. I'm young, I haven't seen much of this world, or of love. But what I do know is that I am in love with you. I've never felt anything like this, anything at all. And trust me, I'm not going to give that up any time soon."

Pausing, Alec studied Magnus's expression, an expression so open that it startled even him. "Magnus, I'm not going to leave you. I'd be an idiot to leave you. And I've been told that I'm a pretty smart man, so I can't contradict that, now can I?"

Magnus laughed then, a laugh that was clothed in every emotion imaginable. He leaned in, and Alec could sense from the way Magnus moved that he wasn't going to get much more sleep that night. He watched as Magnus closed his eyes, but before their lips found each other, Magnus spoke once more. "Thank you, Alexander. I won't ever be able to thank you for all that you've done for me. But I'm going to attempt to thank you every day of my life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, this is Haley! So I've decided to add chapters every day (because the entire thing is already written)!   
> Just wanted to drop by and say that I would love to hear your thoughts on this and that I always, always welcome feedback!


	3. C: Cheating

After a couple of weeks of noticing Magnus's odd behavior, Alec was becoming greatly suspicious. He'd begun noticing Magnus being careful with his phone, sneaking texts here and there. He'd noticed Magnus sneak off several times to do things that he later wouldn't explain. At first, Alec simply thought that Magnus was simply up to something small, that he was just blowing things out of proportion, but the longer things went on, the more secretive Magnus became, the more suspicious Alec became.

It was as though Magnus was constantly on his toes, constantly trying to keep something from him, and the more he noticed this, the more aggravated Alec became. He was currently sitting on the couch, curled up in a blanket, too outwardly angry for even Chairman Meow to be around him. It was very quickly growing late, and Magnus had been gone for hours, not saying where he was going, not even sending a single text to say when he would be home. Stubbornly, Alec had decided that he was going to sit and wait on Magnus, no matter how late he stayed out, just to see how he would react.

Alec began forming speeches in his mind, figuring out exactly how he was going to confront Magnus, looking for the best way to catch Magnus off guard. The longer he sat waiting, the more he thought about it, and the angrier he became. By the time the door began to open, he had completely convinced himself that Magnus was cheating on him.

It was obvious that when Magnus saw Alec he was slightly surprised, but he smiled upon seeing him, a smile that nearly made Alec sick. "What are you still doing up, Alexander?" he asked, his own voice hinging on worry. When Alec heard Magnus, everything he'd been planning to say seemed to melt out of his mind, to step just out of reach of his mouth.

"I was waiting on you," was all that he said, his voice not nearly as strong as he had anticipated. Alec knew he was being petty, but when Magnus sat down and tried to reach for his hand, he pulled it away. Magnus furrowed his brows, looking as though he was trying to keep himself from getting angry as well.

"What's wrong, Alexander? Have I done something?" At that, Alec snorted, suddenly even more furious than he had been all night.

"Don't just 'Alexander' me and think everything is going to be fine. Of course you've done something." Alec looked away from Magnus then, not able to bear looking at the man he loved, knowing that his will would very easily break by the wrong look from Magnus.

Clearing his throat, Magnus reevaluated the situation and began again. "Alec, whatever I've done to you, please explain it to me because I'm at a loss to figure out what that might be. As your partner, please, just talk to me." He paused for a moment, as though rethinking things, then he spoke again. "Without anger and yelling, please."

At that, Alec relaxed ever so slightly, still not wanting to give in to the man next to him. "You've been gone all day," he began, trying very hard to keep himself calm. "You've been gone for hours without so much as a single word to let me know that you were okay. Do you know what that does to me?" He willed himself to look back at Magnus once more and was startled by the confusion in Magnus's eyes.

It was such an open confusion, so vulnerable, that Alec could see he genuinely didn't know it was that he had done wrong. "Alexander," this time, Magnus's voice was gentle in a way that Alec rarely ever heard. "I'm a four hundred year old warlock. I can take care of myself."

"That's not the point of the matter, Magnus," Alec couldn't help but snap back. "The point is that I still worry. And I'll always worry, no matter how powerful you ever become. And that's not all. You've been acting so," he paused, struggling for words. "So, weird," he finally settled on.

Magnus raised an eyebrow, obviously beckoning him to continue his clarification. "You've been sneaking texts and phone calls, you've been going off to who knows where for hours at a time." He took a breath, attempting to hold his composure together. "What am I supposed to think of this?"

As Alec finished his question, Magnus reached over and gently turned his head to face him, forced him to look Magnus in the eyes once more. "You think I'm cheating on you? Is that what this is about?" Alec could hear the ice in Magnus's voice, an ice that put him on edge.

Looking directly into Magnus's eyes, Alec nodded, saying, "Yes, Magnus. That's exactly what I've been thinking. And I will not be made to feel guilty about that." Magnus sighed, only working to make Alec even angrier. His lack of concern at the entire topic was getting more and more on Alec's nerves the longer the conversation continued.

"Alexander, I would never cheat on you. Frankly, the fact that you could even think me capable of such a thing is hurtful and demeaning." He reached over to take hold of Alec's hand, this time keeping it in his grip even when Alec tried to pull it away. "I would never cheat on anyone, but for you to ever think that I could cheat on you specifically. That hurts."

Alec willed himself to believe what Magnus was saying. He could see that Magnus meant it, but he was afraid that what he was seeking was going to deceive him. "If you're not cheating on me, then let me look at your phone." His voice was hard in a way that it rarely became, putting even himself off.

Magnus looked terribly surprised. He had obviously not been expecting Alec to request that. After considering this for what felt like minutes, Magnus slowly shook his head no. "I'm sorry, Alec, but that's not exactly something I want you to do at the moment."

At that, Alec got up from the couch, all but ripping his hand out of Magnus's, suddenly very tired of the conversation, very angry in general. "I'm leaving, then. Don't expect me to be back tonight." He forced himself to not look back as he heard Magnus call his name.  
.  
.  
.  
Walking into their apartment the next day, Alec wasn't really sure what he was expecting to see or do. He was working on autopilot, trying to keep from thinking about what had happened the night before. He had been so worked up that he had barely gotten any sleep, and he was definitely hoping that Magnus would be gone when he got back.

Opening the door, however, what met him on the other side had never begun to cross his mind before that moment. Inexplicably, the apartment seemed to be decorated for a celebration. And somehow, not in the way that Magnus usually decorated, but in a way that looked like Alec had done it. It also seemed to be filled with people, for what reason, Alec had no idea.

Yet, when he walked in, he heard a chorus of "surprise." As he closed the door behind him, he searched for Magnus, finally landing on the sheepish gaze that Magnus was giving him. He had been so distraught the night before that he had somehow completely forgotten that it was his birthday.

He cautiously stepped toward Magnus, allowing his expression to ask the question that was on his mind. Magnus held out his phone, a conversation already pulled up for Alec to see. The more Alec read of it, the worse he began to feel for the night before. "This whole time you were just planning a party for me?" he asked, hearing the disbelief in his own voice.

Magnus nodded, an apology written all over his face. "I guess I wasn't very good at sneaking around, was I?" Alec rushed forward, wrapping his arms around Magnus without a second thought.

"I'm so sorry. For last night." He could feel Magnus laugh under his embrace, something that always made him smile.

"I guess I should have swallowed my pride and just told you, but I wanted to do something for you. You're always worrying about others, taking care of everyone but yourself. You're so selfless. I just wanted to do something in return." He looked down at Alec, a smile perched on his lips. "I knew that if I asked you for permission to throw a party you would insist that you didn't want one."

At that, Alec finally smiled, leaning in to kiss Magnus. "You're right about that, Magnus. But at least now we know you could never get away with cheating. You'd be horrible at it." As Magnus began to laugh once more, Alec cut him off with another kiss, ignoring the gaging sounds made by Jace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haley here! Let me know your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you guys about this chapter and any others!


	4. D: Duck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy or you don't know what occurs in them, then you shouldn't read this story! This spoiler alert also applies to all of the TMI series (if you haven't finished it, don't read this)!

"You got your son a what for his birthday?" Alec tried to hide his smile as he listened to Jace's voice raise a few octaves. "I thought you were a good dad, Alec!" Jace's eyes were ridiculously wide, and Alec couldn't find it in himself to be anything other than amused.

"He asked for it, Jace." He tried to keep his voice even, attempting to keep himself from bursting into laughter. At the rate Jace was going, it seemed more like he and Magnus had gotten their seven-year-old son a set of sex toys for his birthday than anything else. "Aren't good fathers supposed to get their children what they want for their birthdays?"

Jace let out a sharp laugh. "Not when their children ask for monsters for their birthdays." At that, it was Alec's turn to laugh, his laugh a bit heartier than Jace's had been.

"It's a baby duck, Jonathan. What is it going to do? Kill Max with its cuteness?" Jace rolled his eyes as if to say that Alec was being ridiculous, only working to further amuse Alec.

"Ducks are bloodthirsty, Alexander. Mark my words, that creature will be out for blood in no time at all." Alec was about to respond, mostly with a snort, when Max burst into the room. The soft yellow of the baby duck he held in his arms was a stark contrast to the deep blue of his skin.

"Uncle Jace! Look at what my daddies got me!" He rushed over to Jace, who only continued to grow more and more mortified with each second. Alec couldn't help but begin to laugh as Magnus entered the room behind their son, a knowing smile plastered across his face as well.

As he laughed, he gave Jace a glance that he knew said that Jace had better say nothing terrible to his son. "I see that, Max," Jace began, his tone clearly a forced sort of happiness. "It's almost as cute as you."

Alec watched as Magnus's smile widened in such a genuine way that it only caused his to widen as well. No matter how irrationally terrified Jace was of the duck, he would still be gentle and loving with Max, a kind of gentleness that anyone only ever saw when he was around Max.

"Remember what you were going to ask Uncle Jace?" Magnus said from behind Alec, every syllable dripping with amusement. Max giggled, a sound that filled Alec with love and joy, and looked up at his uncle with enormous eyes, obviously wanting something.

"I wanted to see if I could stay here tonight. You promised me a movie night soon." Alec watched as Jace started to say yes immediately, then laid eyes on the duck before him once more. He swallowed visibly, weighing his options, Alec knowing the entire time that Jace would never dream of breaking a promise to the little boy in his arms.

"Duck included?" was all he asked, and Alec felt Magnus's hand squeeze his shoulder, knowing he was trying to keep from laughing as well.

"Of course, Uncle Jace!" Max's voice was light and happy in a way that Alec had only ever heard in children. "Will is my responsibility so I have to take him with me!" Jace immediately looked up at them, more specifically at Magnus, a glare splattered across his face.

"Will?" he asked, his voice colder than it should have been. If he had looked mortified before, it seemed like he had just heard that he was dying now. Alec felt Magnus's silent laughs and wondered how Jace automatically knew that Magnus was the one at fault there.

Max, however, was the one to answer him. "Daddy suggested the name, and I love it! Is there something wrong with it, Uncle Jace?" his voice hinged dangerously on becoming sad, and Jace looked down at him while placing the smile on his face again.

"Of course not, Max. Will is a wonderful name for a duck."  
.  
.  
.  
At first, when the phone rang in the middle of the night, Alec was immediately terrified that something had happened to Max. He and Magnus were in the middle of their "alone time" as they had begun to call it when Max was around, and as he pulled away from Magnus to grab his phone, he had to force himself to ignore Magnus's noises of protestation.

"I'm sure he's fine, Alexander. Jace is probably butt dialing us." Magnus's voice was ragged, and Alec found his hands shaking as he reached for the phone, but this was more out of fear than anything else.

"Jace?" he could tell his voice was not even in any way, but he kept speaking through it. "Jace, what's wrong? It's two in the morning; has something happened to Max?"

He had to signal for Magnus to be as quiet as possible in order to hear Jace at all. "Shhh, Alec, not so loud please." Jace's voice was barely above a whisper, and Alec's mind immediately went to the thought that they were hiding from demons. But demons couldn't enter the Institute, so there had to be some other explanation for Jace's low tone of voice.

"What is going on?" he asked again, humoring Jace and keeping his own voice low as well. At that, Magnus sat up, worry filling his own eyes as well.

"Will," Jace whispered back. "It's Will, the duck. He's in my bedroom." Alec dropped his head in the hand that wasn't holding the phone, trying his hardest not to laugh while simultaneously becoming very angry.

Beside of him, Magnus seemed to take this as a bad signal. "What is it? What's happened, Alec?" he asked, his words running together out of fear. Alec waved a hand and shook his head, trying to show that there was actually nothing going on other than Jace's insanity.

"Jonathan, you interrupted my night alone with Magnus for what again?" Alec knew he had succeeded at keeping any trace of amusement out of his voice, but he knew he hadn't kept the creeping anger out of it.

"This duck is going to kill me, that's what I interrupted your ungodly acts for." At that point, Alec couldn't help but snort, to which he heard another "shhhh" from the other end of the line. Magnus must have begun to listen in because he plopped back down on the bed with an indignant snort of his own, placing his arm over his eyes in annoyance.

"It's a duck, Jace. And a baby one at that." Alec tried to keep his voice steady, forced himself to keep from hanging up on Jace, knowing that he would only call back. "You're a Shadowhunter. You've won two world-wide wars. Pick the duck up and take it back to Max's room."

"But what if it bites me?" Alec rolled back around, lying back in Magnus's arms, feeling as though he was trying to calm down a child, not a man who had been slaying demons for the majority of his life.

"If it bites you, it probably won't even break the skin," he responded with a sigh. "And even if it does, you do have a stele, you know. Just heal it. You've died before, Jace. A bite from a baby duck is not going to be worse than that."

As Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec and began slowly kissing his neck, Alec forced himself to take a deep breath, wishing that he could hang up the phone and resume what he and Magnus had been doing before. "They're murderers, Alexander," he heard Jace say, mixed with sounds that seemed like Jace was actually getting out of bed. "If this duck kills me, my blood is on your hands, just remember that."

"Yeah, yeah, Jace. I'll remember that for sure." Alec didn't wait for Jace to respond, he simply flipped over once more, immediately covering Magnus's lips with his own, hanging up the phone and tossing it on the nightstand as he did so.  
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"So?" Alec could hear the teasing in Magnus's voice as they entered the Institute the next day. "How was your night Jace?" Jace shot him a look that said his night included several words he didn't want to say around Max.

"It was wonderful, thanks for asking," he responded in a tone that said he wasn't actually thankful. Alec smiled as Max ran toward them, Will curled up in his arms. He bent down to pick Max up, duck and all, hiding his amusement behind his son's head.

"Daddy, I really love Will." Max looked at him with a tenderness Alec had always associated with their son only. For a moment, Max looked down at the duck in his arms, petting it in a way that made it seem more like a dog than a duck. "Maybe we'll have to start a little duck family."

At that, Alec couldn't hold in his laughter. Looking at Jace, he decided to take the jab before Magnus could this time. "I think we might have to do that Max. Maybe you can get a girl duck next time and name her Tessa." Alec smiled as he reached to kiss Max's forehead, watching the face Jace made behind Max's head.


	5. E: Eyes

Alec had only been seeing Magnus for a couple of months, but he was growing continually curious. Curious about many different things about Magnus. This curiosity definitely included bigger things such as much of Magnus's past, but it also included many smaller things like Magnus's favorite holiday or the worst movie he'd ever watched. One thing in particular, however, was bothering Alec the most.

As he was sitting watching Magnus cook dinner, something he had insisted on doing without any help, he continually considered questioning Magnus about different topics. Finally, he got the nerve to ask about the one that had been on his mind for weeks. "Magnus? May I ask you a question?"

Magnus simply nodded without turning around, focused on the eggs he was currently cracking. "Of course, Alec. I'm an open book," he replied, cracking an egg in one swift movement.

"What's your warlock's mark?" Alec thought he had asked it in a very simple way, he had thought that what he had asked was perfectly reasonable. But when Magnus dropped the egg that was in his hands, Alec understood that what he had asked did not seem reasonable to Magnus, that he had done it in a terrible way, and he immediately wanted to take it back.

Magnus quickly began cleaning the egg up, something that struck Alec as odd, seeing as he could have simply magicked it away. By the time Magnus had finished cleaning it up, Alec could tell that his hands were shaking, and Alec regretted his question more and more with every second. His curiosity, however, still remained, so he refrained from telling Magnus to just forget the question.

He got up from where he was sitting at the dining room table and made his way to Magnus's side. He gently brought his hand to Magnus's elbow, trying to show his support for Magnus without saying anything at all. Yet as he did so, Magnus began to shake his head.

"I'm sorry, Alec. You caught me off guard, but I'm still not sure I'd like to answer that." Alec knew that his face was currently scrunched up in confusion. He also knew that he had to choose his next words carefully, knew that he had to keep Magnus from completely shutting down on him.

"Why is that, Magnus?" he kept his voice intentionally soft, hoping too late that his tone wouldn't set Magnus off the way it usually set Jace off. At that, Magnus pushed what he was currently mixing to the side and swiftly turned around, grabbing one of Alec's hands and walking him toward the living room.

When they sat down beside each other, Alec made sure his hand stayed in Magnus's. At first, Magnus wouldn't look at Alec, seeming as though he would much rather avoid everything that was going on at the moment. When he did finally look back toward Alec, there was an expression on his face that Alec couldn't read. Whatever Magnus was feeling, he was feeling pretty strongly, and Alec wished that he could take it away from him, or at least help him carry it.

"Alec," Magnus began slowly speaking, obviously attempting to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. "I don't want to answer your question because," he paused then, searching for words. "Well, frankly, Alec, it's because it's a hard topic for me." Alec gave his hand gentle squeeze then, not wanting to say anything that might allow Magnus to think of a way out.

When Alec remained silent, Magnus seemed to understand that he wasn't going to avoid the conversation any longer. "Why is that something that you want to know anyway, Alec?" He asked it in a way that was less of an accusation than it could have been and more of genuine curiosity.

"I just thought that if we were going to be together long term, and I really hope we are," he added with a soft smile. "Then I thought that I might get to know you more. If we can't be completely open with each other, then what else do we have?" Magnus tried to flash a weak smile back, but Alec could tell just how forced it was.

"You're right, and I know that. It's just that," he paused once more, taking a deep breath. "This is something that's hard for me to open up about, if you can't tell that already," he added with another weak smile. "There's a reason I use a glamor almost constantly, and it's not just out of convince for not having to explain my way out of it around mundanes."

Alec stayed silent once more, hoping that his tactic of keeping quiet and allowing Magnus to continue speaking would keep working for as long as possible. To his surprise, it did, and Magnus continued after a moment's pause. "Honestly, Alec, I want to open up to you about this."

He stopped talking there, and Alec could sense that there was more to what he wanted to say. "But?" was all that he asked, silently hoping that keeping things simple also counted with the whole keeping silent tactic.

"But, the last time I opened up to someone who was interested in me, she left me in disgust." The end of Magnus's sentence was so final, his tone was so depreciated, that Alec wanted to wrap his arms around him.

"Well, Magnus, I can assure you that that's not going to happen here." Alec kept his own tone even, attempting to cancel out the gentleness that always seemed to reign with him. "I know what you are, I understand it. If I didn't accept you for who you are, I wouldn't be with you right now."

There was much more that Alec wanted to say, but he let his words linger there, knowing that it was the best place for him to stop. Magnus simply stared at him for a moment, obviously going over his options in his mind. When Magnus sighed and seemed to relax, Alec didn't notice a change at first. The change was so stubble, so light, that Alec had to concentrate to understand that it had happened.

When he finally fully took Magnus's eyes in, his breath was taken away by what he saw. The yellow-green eyes staring back at him were a sharp contrast to the simple black eyes that Magnus had glamoured them into. Their slanting cat's eyes shape could have easily been written off to Magnus's heritage if he had wanted it that way.

Magnus suddenly looked down at his lap when Alec didn't immediately respond, he still held onto Alec's hand, however, an indication that he was still hopeful that Alec's response would be a kind one. "Magnus," Alec could tell his voice was light, but he didn't care at the moment. "Magnus," he repeated, trying to find an adequate adjective to express his feelings for the face before him. "They're absolutely beautiful," he finally settled on the simplest approach.

What surprised him the most was Magnus's reaction to this. He immediately looked back up with an unguarded expression of surprise. It was obvious from how he looked back at Alec that this was the last thing he had expected to come out of Alec's mouth. "You don't mean that?" was all that he responded with, a look of apprehension crossing his face that matched the question mark at the end of his sentence.

Alec reached up to gently cup Magnus's face with his hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth for a moment before answering. "We may not have been together that long, Magnus, but you do know me better than that. I don't say things I don't mean." At that, Magnus smiled once more, and this time, his smile was a genuine one. It was a smile that said he was thankful, that said he was happy, and it couldn't have made Alec himself happier.

"I've heard a lot of things about my eyes, Alec, but I'm afraid that's one thing that I've never heard." Alec didn't know exactly what to say to that, so he remained silent yet again, a smile lingering on his face. "I've heard sexy, I've heard exotic, but I've never heard beautiful." Magnus finished with such finality it seemed as though he was stating something that he had already accepted as a fact.

"Well, Magnus, I've got a few more adjectives to throw at you." Magnus's smile widened, causing Alec's heart rate to increase ever so slightly. "How about gorgeous? Or maybe you'd like stunning better? Or dazzling possibly? Or how about my personal favorite, magnificent? I would love it if you wore your glamor less often. You're stunning with or without it, Magnus, but I absolutely adore the man I see before me." When he had finished speaking, he couldn't help but smile at the look on Magnus's face. It was a look full of such joy and wonder that it filled Alec to the brim with joy himself.

To Alec's surprise, Magnus reached down to give him a gentle kiss. It was a simple one, but Alec could feel the passion behind it, a passion that made him weak at heart for the man before him. When Magnus broke off their kiss, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against Alec's, his eyes all but twinkling with joy.

"Thank you, Alexander." It was the first time he had ever called Alec that, and Alec knew he should have been put off by it, knew that he'd made it his mission to not allow anyone to call him that. Yet the longer he looked back into Magnus's eyes, the more he fell for the way that Magnus had said his name, so full of care that it was heartbreaking.

For a moment, Alec didn't know how to respond. He decided to make the conversation lighter, to shrug off the feelings that were hanging in their air between them. "You're welcome, my magnificent Magnus." He had thought that they would resume their dinner plans after he had said that, but before he could even begin to get up from the couch, Magnus's lips were on his once more.


	6. F: Family

Magnus felt like he was going to explode with anger within five minutes of setting foot into the Institute. He had come to pick up Max who had spent the night there with his best friend, Michael, Jace and Clary's eldest child. Although Michael was three years younger than Max, the two had immediately become the best of friends from the moment Michael could talk.

As soon as he had walked into the Institute, his eight-year-old son had launched himself into Magnus's arms, tears streaming down his face. Seeing as it was already late into the afternoon when he went to pick Max up, Magnus took the time to calm Max down, then put him in Alec's old bedroom to take a nap until they were ready to go.

The door to Alec's old room had barely shut before Magnus was already halfway down the hallway, seething with rage and on his way to find Jace and demand to know what had happened. He had decided that talking to Max now would be counterproductive, that trying to get his son to explain what had happened would only cause more tears, so he figured he would ask questions now, then talk to Max about it when they got home. When Alec could be there to keep Magnus sane.

"Jonathan Lightwood Herondale!" Magnus knew he was most likely overreacting, that Max had probably just misheard or misunderstood something, but when Max had asked him, "Do you really love me, Daddy?" his stomach had knotted up so tightly that he felt as though it would never be the same. As he turned into the library, he heard Jace abruptly stop playing the piano.

"What the hell is going on?" Magnus demanded, quickly striding to tower over Jace where he remained on the piano bench. Jace looked up at him with an expression that was so open it startled Magnus for a moment, an expression that said he was terribly sorry. "Why was my son all but drowning in tears when I got here?" he asked when he regained his focus, trying to shove the image of his son's tear streaked deep blue face from his mind.

Jace remained seated and, somehow, remained extremely calm compared to how he usually was. "Sit down, Magnus. And don't yell. Michael didn't mean anything by it, honestly. He's six years old, he didn't really understand what he was saying. If anything, it's my fault."

Magnus was immediately confused, having not heard anything from his son about what had happened, all he could pick up was that Michael had said something that hurt Max. Magnus found himself hoping with everything he had that it had still been a simple misunderstanding, that Max had just overreacted in the way that children were known to do, but the way Jace was looking at him, a mix of regret and pain and apprehension, told him otherwise.

"I walked in on the tail end of their conversation, so I'm not entirely sure of everything that was said." Jace took a deep breath, and Magnus finally sat down, realizing that what was going on was likely much more than a child's overreaction. "But when I walked in, what I heard was them arguing, if you will, over their families, in a way. What I head was Michael saying something to the effect of," Jace paused there once more, as though knowing what he was about to say would hurt Magnus just as much as it had hurt Max. "'Well, your dads aren't actually your parents,' was what I head Michael say."

When Jace finished, Magnus couldn't do anything other than stare at Jace, the weight of what was said hitting him harder than he had imagined. The worst part of realizing what his son had been told was that Magnus knew he himself had the ability, maturity, and knowledge to understand that his son could have never biologically been his under any circumstance. He had the ability to understand that just because his son wasn't "his", that didn't mean he loved him any less. At nine years old, Max, however, simply did not.

As Magnus started to open his mouth, not really knowing what he was planning on saying, Jace spoke up again, words tumbling out of his mouth in a fashion that suggested he had been planning them ahead of time. "Magnus, I'm terribly sorry. It's completely my fault, so get mad at me, not at Michael." When he said this, he looked away from Magnus, down at the floor, suddenly unable to meet Magnus's eyes any longer. "Michael seems to have overheard a conversation that I had with Clary a couple of days ago."

At that, Magnus knew his eyes had filled with rage once more. "What kind of conversation were you and Clary having, exactly?" The ice in his voice intimidated himself even.

"No, no, no." Jace was talking rapidly once more. "I didn't mean it in that way, Magnus, you know that. I would never say anything of the sort; Michael just misunderstood me. Clary and I were talking about Max and how he's going to have to adjust to being a warlock as he grows up. And then I idly said something about how I wondered if we would ever find out who his real dad is, if his dad is really of any importance or if he was just another demon." Jace paused yet again, looking as though it pained him to even say this once more. "Michael overheard and took it out of context, Magnus. I sear on the Angel that I would never even dream of saying that Max is not definitely yours. That child might not have been made from the two of you, but I would never deny the fact that he is your son."

Without saying a word in response, Magnus got up and left the room. It wasn't so much that he was angry with Jace, but rather that he was stunned. He knew that Jace hadn't meant for anything of the sort to happen, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with, and he had no idea what to say. So he simply got up, walked out, gathered his son in his arms once more, and made his way home, hoping that his husband would be able to help.  
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After consulting with Alec on the matter, they called Max back in the living room. Alec reached over to clasp one of Magnus's hands, and when he looked down, Magnus realized that Alec had picked up on the fact that his hands were shaking before he had himself. "Am I in trouble?" Max's soft voice sounded choked with tears yet again.

Magnus immediately began shaking his head, then cracked a gentle smile when he saw that Alec had done the same. "No, Max," he said, keeping his voice as even as possible. "You're not in trouble. I talked to Uncle Jace about what happened, and your dad and I just want to talk to you about it now."

He had thought that Max was going to come sit between them, that he was going to allow them to explain things to him. He had been wrong. "There's nothing to talk about, Daddy," Max said from where he stood a few feet from the couch, his face completely blank. "You're not my daddies, and that's all there is."

Before Magnus had time to respond, Alec began speaking, his tone a bit harsher than necessary. "Max Lightwood. Do not ever let me hear you say that again." Max looked at him with eyes that were slowly filling with tears again, and Magnus got up and took his son in his arms before anyone could protest.

He sat back down on the couch, holding Max as tightly as possible, wishing that they had explained everything to him sooner. "I'm going to explain somethings to you Max, some things that I should have told you before now." He paused to wipe a tear from Max's cheek. Max simply nodded, his lower lip trembling, and Magnus had to keep himself from showing that the same sort of emotion was welling up inside him as well.

"Max, you may not understand all of this right now, but just listen to me. Your daddy and I love each other very much, but there's two reasons that we could never ever have a child of our own, no matter how much we wanted to. The first is that I'm a warlock, and warlocks can't have children." He paused when Alec squeezed his hand, fighting the urge to make Alec take the rest of the explanation. "But even if I weren't a warlock, two men can't have children together, Max. Only a woman can have a baby, just like Aunt Clary had Michael."

For a moment, it seemed as though Max wasn't going to say anything, but when he did, his tear soaked voice was heart shattering. "But that's not fair, Daddy!" His simple exclamation left Magnus heartbroken, looking to Alec for answers that neither of them had. Just when Magnus thought that there was no way he could continue, Alec picked up the pieces, just as he always did.

"No, it's not fair, Max," he began, reaching over to wipe more tears for Max's face. "But the thing about it is that no matter whose child you really are, you're still our son, Max. You're in our family, and no one could ever say anything that would make me love you less." Max reached out for Alec then, immediately burying his face on Alec's shoulder once he was in his father's arms.

When Alec sat him down once more, he continued speaking, what he said finally bringing the tears that had been stinging Magnus's eyes the whole time. "You have no idea what an amazing day it was when we got you. I don't think I've ever been so happy, Max. Just when I thought that things were never going to look up, just when I thought that I was never going to get to have the life I wanted with your father, you were there, in our arms, and things were suddenly perfect."

For the first time that day, Max smiled. It was a soft smile, but it was a genuine one, and Magnus could tell that Alec was relieved to see it. "Max, the day you called us daddy was the best day of my life, trust me. We argued for an hour over who you were saying it to. In the end, I think I ended up crying just out of pure joy." He reached down to stroke the hair out of Max's eyes, smiling over at Magnus as he did so. "Let me tell you that you have made my life infinitely better. You're my son, and I don't care who says otherwise."

In the end, the three of them ended up falling asleep wrapped up together on the couch after spending the rest of the night laughing and smiling more than Magnus could have thought humanly possible.


	7. G: Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have cried while writing this, so be prepared!

It was Alec's birthday, and Magnus wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and stay there until the end of time. It had been almost two years since they had lost Alec in an accident. Their son, Max, was already grown, quickly closing in on his late twenties, and the shock of losing Alec so soon had sent Magnus's mind spiraling. Max had offered to come back home, to stay with his dad for a while, but Magnus had declined, seeing as Max was already out on his own and living with his girlfriend, Grace, who just so happened to be a Shadowhunter.

He couldn't crawl back in bed, no matter how badly he wanted to, and he unfortunately couldn't even stay at home and drink his pain away. Max had called him a couple of days ago, asking him to come to the Clave meeting that was happening today, the last thing that Magnus wanted to do. He and Alec had spent the last twenty some years fighting the Clave for their right to get married in a Shadowhunter ceremony.

Magnus had almost wanted to think it was a terrible dream when Alec had died without ever seeing his dream come true. The last thing Magnus wanted to do was walk into the Clave and pretend to be kind to the very people he despised for breaking his heart so thoroughly. But Max had kept insisting, and Magnus finally gave in, mostly because he knew his son would most likely never give up.

As soon as Max saw him making his way inside the hall, he came to wrap his arms around the father he had left saying, "Thanks for coming, Dad. It'll be worth your while, I promise." Magnus simply nodded and followed his son inside, not wanting to risk Max hearing how weak his voice would inevitably be.

When they sat down, Magnus situated between Jace and Isabelle, Magnus closed his eyes, willing Alec to be by his side once more. Seeing Jace had reminded him of the time, about a year back, when Jace had asked him why he had never just given in, why he had never married Alec in a Downworlder ceremony when they realized how long it would take to get the Law changed. "I did, Jace," he had responded, even less able to think of Alec then than he was able to now. "I did give in. I told him I wanted to marry him, no matter the type of ceremony. It was Alec who said he was going to keep fighting for our right to be married in gold until the day he died."

Magnus felt a hand on his arm, so he finally opened his eyes and turned to smile at Isabelle, a smile that he knew she would see right through it. When he turned back to look at the meeting before him, he did a double take. There was no way that he was seeing his son make his way to the center of the room, taking a position that would only mean that he was about to make an appeal to the Clave. He didn't really hear any of the other Lightwoods as they settled around him and gave him their greetings, he was too busy keeping his eyes on Max, wondering what on earth he could possibly be doing.

When Max began speaking, Magnus felt as though he should have known it all along, but that didn't stop surprise from welling up inside him. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Clave and of Downworld. I stand before you today to make an appeal that the majority of you will likely scoff at immediately. But I implore you to listen to everything I have to say with open minds, to hear me as though you've never heard this request before."

Max paused for a second, his eyes coming to rest on Magnus, a light smile on his lips, a smile full of both pain and happiness. "I stand before you today to make an appeal in the name of my father, Alexander Lightwood, who stood before you more times than I could count to make this same appeal. I stand before you on behalf of one of the two greatest men I've ever met. Do not turn your heads. Do not tune me out just because you think you don't agree with what I say. Give me a chance."

As Magnus watched Max, he could feel the tears stinging his eyes, wanting to roll down his face. Max was standing with such confidence, his voice ringing out with such clarity, that Magnus couldn't think of anyone other than Alec. "My appeal is for a change in the Law that has caused pain and grief for far too long, a change in the Law that has kept loving couples apart much longer than it should have. I'm not going to stand here and preach to you about right and wrong, my father did that enough times. And nothing ever seemed to help anyone realize how right he was."

The tears began streaming down Magnus's face in full force, and he didn't try to stop them, figuring that if someone couldn't understand why he was crying, then he didn't care enough about them anyway. "I'm here to show you what kind of pain and injustice this Law has caused. I'm here to appeal to you on behalf of the pain that my two fathers faced every day. I'm here to reveal to you exactly how not allowing Shadowhunters and Downworlders their right to a Shadowhunter marriage is affecting families, starting with the Lightwoods."

Isabelle moved her hand from Magnus's arm to place her own arm around him, picking up on how close he was to a breakdown. "My father risked his life above and beyond what most of you sitting before me today could ever imagine. He gave his entire life to the Clave, gave his entire life to the very people who made his own life a living hell."

As Magnus looked around the room, he could see that some of the Clave members were actually captured by what Max was saying, giving him hope for the first time all night. "Alexander Lightwood loved more deeply than any of you could ever imagine. Just because he dared to extend that love outside of what you think should be normal, just because he loved without fear or prejudice, you deemed his love immoral, you condemned him to a life in which that love could never be fully expressed in the way he deserved."

At that, Magnus reached for Isabelle beside of him, reached for her hand, hoping that someone could help anchor him when his world was collapsing around him. "My father refused to bow down to your judgements, to bow down to your idea of normal. And for that, you punished him more than any of you will ever seem to wrap your heads around. I've recently heard talk of honoring my father, of honoring one of the great heroes of the Mortal and Dark Wars. The first time I heard someone say that the Clave was thinking of building a monument, I couldn't help but laugh."

Max locked eyes with his father once more, or he would have if Magnus had been able to properly look at him any longer. When Magnus felt Robert place a hand on his shoulder, he lost all sense of those around him, all he knew was that his Alexander was gone and that their son was doing the bravest thing he had ever done.

"If you want to honor Alexander Lightwood, forget the monuments, forget any material thing that you could ever put his name on. If you want to honor him, do something in this world that he would genuinely care about. Don't put his name on something, do something in his name." Max paused for the first time all night, taking a deep breath as though he had to steady himself. "To love should not be to fear. What my father would want to stand in his name would be that each man and woman, every single Shadowhunter and Downworlder alike would be free to love as they choose, would no longer be put to shame for their feelings."

At that, Max turned to Grace, flashing a smile before wrapping up his speech. "Not to mention that a change like this in the Law would finally bring some meaning to the Accords once again. Love is peace, not fear. And that is what Magnus and Alec Lightwood, two heroes of this century, my two fathers knew and taught me."  
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Magnus didn't know where he was walking, all he knew was that he couldn't face his son, he couldn't face any of the Lightwoods at the moment. The second that the Clave had voted in favor of Max's appeal, Magnus was on his feet, out of the door before anyone could protest. When he realized that he was headed toward the place just outside Alicante where they had made a grave for Alec, a place that they could go back to and remember Alec even though his body was in the Silent City, Magnus hadn't had the strength to change his direction.

Arriving at the grave, he immediately fell to his knees beside of the headstone, suddenly realizing that he wasn't crying any longer, feeling as though he had no more tears to cry. "Alexander," his voice sounded strangled even to his own ears. "Alexander, I had to come tell you myself." He knew he looked insane, but he was beyond caring.

"Max. He did it. Alexander, he did it. He got the Law changed, for you. Shadowhunters and Downworlders can be married in gold now. In your name." Magnus was too focused on Alec to hear anyone come up behind him, but when Isabelle touched him softly on the shoulder, he didn't jump. He had known he was being followed all the way out of Alicante. Even if he hadn't noticed them, he knew the Lightwoods would never leave him alone at a time like this, a fact that he was terribly thankful for.

"Hey, big bro." Izzy's voice was softer, something completely out of character for her. "You won. You finally won." She paused for a second, taking in a ragged breath and sinking down to wrap her arms around Magnus. "You can rest now, okay?" She chocked on her words then, leaning over to kiss Magnus's forehead the way Alec had often kissed hers, too full of emotion to continue talking to Alec.

The next thing they both knew, Jace was standing above them, obviously trying to keep emotion off of his face. He was failing miserably at it. "I just have one thing to say to you Alec, and then I'm gonna leave it to those who can phrase things more eloquently. I swear on the Angel, I swear to you as my best friend, my brother, and my parabatai that I will take care of them for you until the day that I come to be by your side once more. Izzy is right, it's your time to rest now. Hail and farewell, my brother, and more importantly, happy birthday. Your son has given this world a much brighter, much happier future. Your work is done."

With that, Jace turned and walked to a nearby tree, and Magnus watched as he leaned back against it, sinking to the ground and placing his head on his knees. Before Magnus had so much as a chance to wipe away the tears that had begun once again, Robert placed a hand softly on his shoulder. He smiled down at Magnus before speaking to Alec for himself.

"You've done a wonderful job here. Max is a good man, Alexander. He is a good man because you and Magnus raised him right. The man that stood up today and gave all he had for a cause that meant the world to him, that's the man I wish I could be. He became the man he is, the warlock he is, because of your love for Magnus." Robert took a deep breath, his hand tightening ever so slightly on Magnus's shoulder. "I almost didn't believe it when I realized that you were daring to be the man that I never had the courage to be. But you were that man, and you taught your son to be that man, too. I have the utmost faith that Magnus will take care of him long after we've all followed after you. After all, you made the love of your life a better man as well."

Magnus didn't know what was up and what was down any longer. All he knew was that the hole in his heart was growing larger with each and every second. Then suddenly, Isabelle's arms were no longer around him and he felt as though he was going to drown. But before he could make a move, her arms were replaced by blue ones. As soon as Max's arms were around him, Magnus felt things beginning to right themselves again. He could suddenly breathe once more; he could look at Alec's grave without shaking. The hole was still there, but Max seemed to patch it up, if ever so slightly.

He turned to hold on to his son as well, unable to say the thousands of words that he wanted to say to Max, unable to express just how proud he was or just how thankful he was for the wonderful man he had been given. "I did it for you, Dad." Max began speaking, but Magnus knew it wasn't to him. "Well, maybe I did it just a tiny bit for me and Grace. But mostly for you." Magnus could hear the smile in his son's voice.

As Magnus watched Alec's grave, a single white rose appeared in front of it. "Happy birthday, Dad," was the last thing Max was able to say before he found himself in his father's arms, Magnus finally breaking free and wrapping his arms around the only person keeping him anchored to the world at the moment.

Before Max could say or do anything else, Magnus made another rose appear beside of the one Max had placed. "Happy birthday, Alexander," he said, finally regaining his ability to speak. "Don't celebrate too much over this victory. Not without me."


	8. H: Home

"Magnus?" Alec's soft voice called out from across the room. He had obviously just gotten up because he sounded pretty groggy and he was a bit slow as he made his way to Magnus's side at the kitchen counter. He wrapped his arms around Magnus, allowing him to relax ever so slightly. "Happy birthday," Alec finished, instead of asking a question.

Turning around in Alec's arms, Magnus tried to force a smile, tried to pretend as though he wasn't at all intimidated by the day ahead of him. "Are you alright?" Alec looked up at his with concern clearly written all over his face. Magnus sometimes hated how easily Alec was able to pick up on his moods. He simply nodded and bent down to give Alec a gentle kiss.

When he pulled away, however, Alec's concern had only seemed to grow, most likely because of the fact that his heart wasn't really in the kiss. Or maybe his heart wasn't the problem, maybe it was just the fact that his mind was on so many things all at once. "Magnus? What's wrong? And don't tell me you're okay." Alec's voice was demanding, yet not in a cold way.

"There's a lot on my mind right now, Alexander." Magnus knew that to anyone else, his voice would have been perfectly even, but to Alec, there was no hiding how he was really feeling. "There's just something I want to do today, but I don't want to drag you into it."

Alec studied him for a moment, obviously trying to assess the situation. "Magnus," he finally seemed to settle his mind. "I will follow you to the ends of the earth. If there's something you want to do that you need my support for, well, you have it."

Knowing there was no way out of it, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to resist going through with what he had been thinking, Magnus simply nodded again. "If I'm being honest, I just want to go home."  
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Portaling to Indonesia wasn't anything new to Magnus, but he knew that to Alec, everything would be terribly strange. Alec's eyes widened as soon as they set foot in the small village where Magnus had grown up. As Magnus glanced around, he couldn't see that much had changed, not terribly surprising for how far into the middle of nowhere the village was. He glanced over toward Alec once more and reached out to take his hand, knowing that his wide eyes were just one indication of how uncomfortable he was.

Magnus had glamoured them both, knowing that they would both stick out far more than was safe in a place like this. Glamouring his clothes was essentially the only thing Magnus had needed to do for himself, Alec, however, was a bit trickier. The majority of Alec needed to be glamoured in order to keep him safe. There were people around these parts who knew about Shadowhunters, people who would not be happy to see one in their village.

As he led the way down the all too familiar streets, Magnus couldn't help but get lost in the sound of his native language all around him. Alec remained silent, somehow knowing that Magnus was far too distracted, far too emotional at the moment.

He led the way toward the small, almost ancient cemetery that lay just outside of the village. When Alec seemed to register where they were going, his hand tightened around Magnus's, and Magnus knew it wasn't for Alec's own comfort. As they entered the cemetery, Magnus cringed to see that it was overgrown from years of neglect. He had half a mind to snap his fingers and do the landscaping himself, but he knew a move like that would be dangerous for him here, even now.

Making his way down the paths that were indistinguishable from the rest of the grounds around them, knowing every step of the way by heart, Magnus held his breath, wishing he had asked Alec to stay at home. As they neared the two graves that Magnus was there visit, Alec's eyes widened once more. They were the only two graves in the entire place that were still in the condition they might have been four hundred years ago.

Magnus had heard the locals believed that this was because there was a curse on his mundane parents, that their graves were untouchable because of some underlying evil that protected them. He knew, however, that this was pure nonsense, having gone back to the graves when he was in this twenties to place the spell on them himself. But letting the locals believe that his parents had been given a great curse was much easier, he sometimes felt as though that might have actually been true, the curse being himself.

Upon reaching his parents' graves, Magnus immediately sat down beside them, suddenly unable to stand any longer. Alec paused for a moment, as though trying to figure out what he should do, and then Magnus found Alec by his side on the ground, his arms wrapping around Magnus.

When they had first arrived, Magnus had only felt an endless sort of numbness, an all too familiar feeling. Seeing the graves had caused an equally familiar feeling, thinking about his parents often caused him to feel as though he was falling apart, a working combination of self-hatred, longing, and remorse.

Yet when Alec wrapped his arms around him, Magnus began feeling as though the pieces had stopped falling, as though they were somehow being glued back together. He leaned back into Alec's embrace, feeling for the first time in a long time that the holes in his heart might somehow be filled. Somehow, Alec gave him back a part of him that had been ripped from him so many years ago.

When Alec leaned forward to give Magnus a gentle kiss on the cheek, Magnus had to clear his throat to keep his emotions at bay. "Thank you, Alexander." He began speaking, keeping his voice low in order for it to remain even. "They hated me, you know. They both died despising me. And yet here I am, four hundred years later, still loving them despite it all."

"There's nothing wrong with that, Magnus. It shows your humanity, your loving soul." Alec's voice was soft, light with care. "My dad, well you know what my dad said to me, and I loved him through every second of it. Jace still loves Valentine and he's not even Jace's father. It's a normal human reaction, Magnus."

Just as Magnus was about to say something else, an eerily amused voice spoke up behind them. "Too bad he's not a human, isn't that right, Alexander?" The sound of Asmodeus's voice made Magnus sick, made him want to portal back to New York as quickly as possible. But just as Magnus began to get up, just as he began to find the strength to face his real father, Alec was on his feet, words spilling out of his mouth.

"Firstly, do not call me Alexander, that is not a name that I wish for a mouth like yours to taint." Magnus turned in time to see Asmodeus smirking, obviously happy to get a rise out of Ale. "Secondly, go to hell."

At that, Asmodeus laughed, causing Magnus's stomach to twist into yet tighter knots. "Been there, done that. Had a good time, really." His voice had that lazy tone that it always carried, a tone that said he was bored.

Magnus got up, preparing to keep Alec from engaging with his father any more, but before he could Alec was speaking again. "You're a demon, I get that. But the fact that you're pure evil, the fact that you are incapable of love, that doesn't make your son evil, that doesn't make your son soulless." Alec took a step backward, but it wasn't out of fear, it was so that he could take hold of Magnus's hand, a gesture that said he wasn't about to back down. "Magnus isn't a demon just because you are. Children aren't the mistakes of their parents."

When Alec said this, Magnus knew he wasn't just talking about Asmodeus, he was saying it about Magnus's mundane parents as well. "That's cute, really, that you think Magnus is good." Magnus tightened his hand around Alec's, using Alec's weight to remain standing. "In the time that you have known Magnus, he may have made it seem as though he is a good man, but you don't know the majority of what he's done."

Magnus momentarily thought of telling Alec to stop, but it seemed as though he was not going to stop any time soon, and trying to keep him from it would only anger him more. "I don't need to know everything that Magnus has ever done. I know the man I love; I know that he is a good man. I have seen him at his best, and I have seen him at his worst. And I choose both sides of him because they are both what makes him the spectacular man he is."

Asmodeus opened his mouth, an eerie smile remaining on his face, but Alec threw up a hand and cut him off. "No. I don't want to hear any more of your shit." It somehow always stunned Magnus to hear Alec swear, it took a lot to make such a gentle person so angry. "Magnus was here to spend time with his parents, the ones he loved. And we don't need a dick like you making it any harder than it has to be."

At first, Magnus thought his eyes were deceiving him, but he slowly blinked, coming to realize that Asmodeus had simply left. It must have come as a shock to Alec as well because he turned in a full circle, searching for the demon who was no longer there. When Alec came to face him again, Magnus reached over to give him a quick, gentle kiss.

"Sit down, Magnus," Alec's voice came out a bit more strained than it had before, as though he was trying to keep his own emotions out of the equation. "Take all the time you need. Your gentle, loving, brave, noble Shadowhunter is here to keep the demons at bay." Magnus couldn't help but smile as he sat down and found himself in Alec's arms once again. He knew Alec was trying his hardest to lighten the mood.

He thought for several long moments about thanking Alec, about trying to express to him just how much the words he had just said had meant to him. But Magnus couldn't seem to find any adequate way of showing Alec exactly what he meant to him. "If you're so brave, how about we go into town in a bit and I teach you some Indonesian?" He laughed for the first time that day when he heard Alec groan.


	9. I: Indecision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of fluff! I'm trying to get another happy story going but I keep having all these heartbreaking ideas right in a row!

Alec was curled up by the window in the spot Magnus had made just for him in the apartment. Magnus had made it for him to sit and read in, a huge dark blue chair that was the most comfortable thing Alec had ever sat in. It was simple, but then again, Magnus had picked up on the fact that Alec's tastes were also simple. At this point, however, Alec wasn't so much reading as he was watching the snow fall outside while Magnus was in the kitchen cooking, having insisted that he do the cooking today and let Alec relax since they were snowed in. Moments like these contented him the most, moments in which he understood that what he and Magnus had was real.

For the past few nights, Alec had been out on missions until the break of dawn, coming home practically frozen, bruised and exhausted. Now that the snow had finally arrived, he was terribly happy that he had the chance to laze around all day and spend time with Magnus.

The longer he watched the snow, however, the sleepier he became. Before he realized what was happening, Magnus was gently shaking him awake. "Alexander?" he asked, his tone full of amusement. Alec sat up as quickly as possible, somehow knowing that he had fallen asleep for more than a few seconds. "How long was I asleep?" he asked, pointedly ignoring the smirk on Magnus's face.

"Oh you know, not long. Just a couple of hours." Magnus motioned for Alec to scoot over, the chair being plenty big enough for the two of them. As he sat down, Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec, his warmth definitely welcome.

"Hours? Magnus, what happened to dinner? You should have woken me up." He felt Magnus chuckle behind him, and he knew that he most likely looked exhausted for Magnus to keep from waking him up.

"You were tired, Alec. You can go eat if you want, I just went ahead and ate. You looked too peaceful to wake up." Alec sighed, resigning himself to the fact that Magnus was always looking out for him, a fact that was taking a bit of getting used to. "There is something I wish to talk to you about, though. If you want to eat, go ahead, but I've been thinking about something for a while that I need to get off my chest."  
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Alec couldn't believe what Magnus was saying. After Alec had eaten, Magnus had sat down with him once more to tell him what had been weighing on his mind for several weeks. He had been thinking about taking away his immortality, living out what he called a normal life with Alec. At first, Alec couldn't speak, unable to thoroughly process what Magnus was saying.

The worst part was that Magnus was not asking for Alec's permission, or even for his opinion on the matter. He was simply letting Alec know that it was something he was thinking about. "Alec," Magnus's voice cut through Alec's thoughts once more. "I know that this a shock to you. But it's something I've thought of every time I've been in a serious relationship with a mortal. You can't expect me to not think about it this time around. Not when I've fallen so deeply in love with you."

At that, Alec considered getting up, going for a walk despite the cold. He wanted to go clear his mind, but curing back up in Magnus's arms seemed equally appealing. He chose the latter, falling back in Magnus's embrace, remaining silent for as long as possible. "Alexander, I'll let you know as soon as I decide what to do. I'm sorry that I'm doing this to you, but I just thought I should be completely honest with you about what's going on."

"I understand that Magnus," was all that Alec said for the rest of the night. His last thought before falling asleep once more was that he genuinely hoped Magnus couldn't hear the strain in his voice.  
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"Magnus is thinking about what now?" Jace's voice raised a few octaves when Alec explained what was going on. Jace had cornered him, asking him why he had been acting so strange and distant for the past few weeks. Magnus still had yet to make up his mind on the matter of his immortality, and as the days dragged on, Alec became more and more distracted and upset by the entire ordeal.

"Yeah, Jace, I know." Alec sighed, going to sit beside Jace where he was on the couch of the Institute's library. "I've been so distant because the more I think about it, the more it hurts me." Jace looked over toward him in surprise, somehow knowing that Alec had been hurting and taken aback by his pain at the same time.

"It's not something I want for him," Alec continued, hoping to erase the look of confusion on Jace's face. "He seems to think that it would be some sort of romantic, happy ending for us. But for him to throw away his life just for the very idea of being with me in death. That's the most painful thing I can think of at the moment."

Jace seemed to consider this for a moment before responding. "If you're hurting, Alec, tell him. The love that the two of you share is deeper than any other love I've ever seen. He'd want to know how much it's hurting you, that's one thing I do know."

Without saying another word, Alec got up from the couch, immediately headed toward the door. He didn't need to look back to know that there was a smirk on Jace's face.

"We need to talk, Magnus, right now." Alec didn't so much request to talk to Magnus as he did demand. He knew deep down that Jae was right, that he needed to be as honest with Magnus as Magnus was being honest with him.

Magnus simply gave him a startled look and nodded, too surprised to respond in any way. "Magnus, I know you said that you wanted me to respect whatever decision you make, and I will, but I need you to know my opinion on the matter." When Magnus remained silent, he took that as a good sign and continued speaking. "First of all, your indecision on the matter is absolutely killing me. I understand that it's a huge decision, that it literally means your life, but this waiting game is taking its toll on me."

When Magnus opened his mouth to speak, Alec held up a hand, knowing that if he stopped speaking now, he might not have the courage to continue later. "No, Magnus, just hear me out and then you can respond." At that, Magnus reached over to take his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Second, I don't want you to do this. Do not give me that look either, let me explain."

Magnus flashed a weak smile as Alec picked up on ever little expression of his. "You think that would be a happy ending for us. But that's not what it feels like to me. To me it seems as though you'd be throwing away your life for me. And that will never be something that I could want." Alec finally looked at Magnus straight in the eyes for the first time since they had begun their talk.

"Your life is more precious to me than you could ever imagine. And I understand that you're afraid of losing me, that you're scared of the loneliness that might follow, even if you won't admit it. But, Magnus, you're immortal for a reason. You've already saved and loved so many people, me included. But the thought of what more you could do with the rest of eternity, the thought of all the change you could make, that's enough to convince me that you need to be here."

He took a break then, pausing to breathe and regain his focus. "Magnus, I know you love me, I really do understand that. But you have to understand that every couple who has ever been together has gotten a certain amount of time and no more. We simply have to make the most of the time that we are given together. I don't want this world to lose such a great man just because he dared to love a bit too deeply."

Almost as soon as Alec finished speaking, he found Magnus's lips on his, so much passion and care behind his every movement that Alec's breath was taken away. Alec, however, was the first to pull back, albeit reluctantly. Before he could say anything again, Magnus spoke, his breath slightly ragged. "Alexander, I think I have made my decision." Alec swallowed the lump in his throat then, suddenly nervous about what Magnus was going to say.

"Every new day that I wake up beside of you, I find myself happier than the day before. You're the love of my life in every way, and I know now that you'll always be the love of my life, no matter how long it continues." Magnus paused to kiss Alec's forehead, such a gentle gesture that it took Alec's breath once more. "If you wish for me to continue on after you, then that's exactly what I'll do. It won't be easy, that I know. I'll be a changed man, that's for sure. But I'll continue living life the way you want me to. I'll keep my immortality, and everything I do from the moment of your death onward will be in your name."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration for this chapter came from a post of Cassie's that I once saw in which she had talked about how she didn't think that Magnus dying to be with Alec would be a "romantic" ending for the two of them!


	10. J: Jealousy

Magnus was seething with rage as he watched Alec and the werewolf they were currently interrogating. They were out on a mission together for the first time, Alec reasoning that Magnus being with him would help ease the mind of the wolves that they were having to talk to. There had been a string of attacks on mundanes that looked eerily like wolf attacks, but Alec was taking the time to investigate before accusing, knowing all too well that there could always be something or someone else at fault.

This particular interrogation, however, was beginning to rub Magnus the wrong way. He didn't like the way the wolf was smiling at Alec, the way he kept looking Alec up and down, the way he was leaning in toward Alec as they talked, the way Alec often leaned into Magnus himself. He mostly hated the way Alec was allowing it, it was as though he simply didn't care.

The biggest problem was that Magnus could see the appeal to the man standing before them. He wasn't unattractive. "Magnus?" Alec's voice jerked him out of his thoughts of how he could make the werewolf much less attractive than he was at the moment. "What do you think? Should we or shouldn't we?"

The next problem Magnus had to deal with was the fact that he had no idea what Alec was talking about; he hadn't been listening to a word they were saying. He could admit that he hadn't been listening, but that would easily lead to a string of questions Magnus didn't want to answer. "What? Yeah, sure, of course." Alec raised an eyebrow, and Magnus immediately knew that he had said the wrong thing.

"You think," said the werewolf beside of them, automatically annoying Magnus further. "That the Shadowhunters should arrest the leader of the New York clan, Luke Garroway, your friend, I might add, on pure assumption alone?" Magnus groaned internally, realizing he'd taken a step in the wrong direction. Thinking about Luke annoyed him even more, considering that they would have been able to deal with only him if he hadn't been on vacation with Jocelyn at the moment.

Before Magnus could open his mouth once more, Alec stepped in, quickly smoothing things over. "You'll have to excuse him; he's not been feeling well." The look Alec gave him suggested to Magnus that they were in for a talk when they got home. "Of course we're not going to arrest Luke. We'll simply have to wait until he gets home to speak with him or until someone catches the murderer in the act."

When the werewolf spent a bit too long shaking Alec's hand, Magnus grimaced, clearing his throat in order to show that they needed to leave. With a suspicious look, Alec lead Magnus out as quickly as possible.  
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"What was your problem today, Magnus?" Alec's tone was on edge, something that Magnus couldn't entirely blame him for. Throughout the rest of the interrogations, Magnus knew he had been distant and fairly annoyed, a fact that Alec had unfortunately quickly picked up on. "You completely spaced out while we were talking to that werewolf. You were terribly mannered every time we had to talk to someone, no, every time we had to talk to another man." Magnus silently cursed Alec's ability to simply talk and reason through almost anything.

After a long pause, Alec spoke again, his voice much softer this time. "Magnus, were you-" he paused once more, searching for the best way to continue. "Were you jealous?" he finally finished, settling for the direct way, as he generally always did.

Magnus sighed and decided that the best way to answer Alec was to not answer him at all. He would quickly get the message, and Magnus wasn't ready to admit that he was right. "That's utterly absurd, and you know it." Alec's voice was tight, clearly angry.

"Well, Alexander," Magnus didn't know why he was reacting so strongly, but he couldn't seem to hold back, couldn't seem to stay calm. "I'm sorry if you think that what I was feeling was invalid." Now, it was Alec's turn to return the anger.

"Don't put words in my mouth. That's not at all what I said." He got up to go sit across the room from Magnus, seeming as though he wanted space. "You're being unreasonable, Magnus. I only have eyes for you, that's something you know."

Before Magnus could think of anything else to say, Alec began again. "Do you not trust me?" When Magnus didn't respond right away, Alec's face twisted in pain. "I would do anything for you. And yet here we are, arguing over some werewolf whose name I don't even remember, a werewolf that you grew jealous of simply because he was looking at me with mild interest."

Magnus spread out his hands, indicating that he wasn't going to argue with the point Alec had just made. "People are going to look at me that way, Magnus. People look at you that way all the time, men and women alike. To think that just because someone looks at me with interest that I will automatically look at them that way too, well that's ridiculous and purely unreasonable."

Shaking his head, Magnus got up from the couch, headed toward the bedroom, knowing very well that he was being unreasonable. "Then you can unreasonably sleep on the couch tonight, Alexander." As he entered their room, Magnus wasn't able to slam the door, the image of Alec's pained expression already etched into his mind.  
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The next week was terribly painful as Alec barely spoke to Magnus, saying that Magnus if couldn't trust him, then he wasn't entitled to be near him. Each and every day was worse than the last, each and every time he rolled over in bed to find nothing but cold emptiness beside of him caused him more pain than the last.

He had woken up that morning and immediately gone for a walk, unable to stay in the apartment with such a silent Alec. Walks usually cleared his mind, but today, however, this walk was only causing him more grief, was only allowing him to spend more time thinking about Alec.

Only a few blocks from the apartment, Magnus abruptly turned around, resolving to get back to Alec as quickly as possible, to apologize as best as possible. He practically ran, preparing a speech in his mind, wishing to erase all the pain he had caused Alec.

When he got back, however, Alec was nowhere to be seen. He looked all throughout the apartment, unable to find Alec, a sudden worry that he had caused a pain that he would be unable to erase bubbling up inside of him.

He checked the bedroom last, and what met him inside surprised him. Alec still wasn't there, but he had left something for Magnus on the bed. As Magnus sat down, he reached over to pick up the simple blue rose that Alec had left, softly closing his eyes when he processed the fact that Alec had left this on purpose, knowing it was Magnus's favorite. Beside the rose, Alec had left a piece of paper, on it written the words, "Greenhouse. Trust me."

Magnus made his way to the Institute as quickly as possible, unable to let go of the rose, unable to stop thinking of the fact that Alec had underlined the word 'trust', echoing their conversation from a week ago.

Stepping into the greenhouse was an adventure in and of itself, as always. This time, however, it was not due to the plants around him, but the fact that Magnus noticed the blue and green flower petals on the ground as soon as he stepped inside. They had obviously been laid in a line to show Magnus which way to go, so he cautiously stepped forward, unable to think of what Alec might have planned.

Magnus stopped short in surprise when he saw Alec, sitting on the ground, a picnic inexplicably spread out around him. He smiled up at Magnus when he saw the confusion on Magnus's face. "I want peace, Magnus, it's as simple as that." His voice was light and soft, full of love and hope. He motioned for Magnus to come sit beside of him, and Magnus had to force his legs to move.

As he sat down, Alec reached over to take his hand, beginning to speak once more. "I'm sorry, Magnus, I overreacted, and I wish to amend that." Magnus immediately shook his head, causing Alec to simply raise an eyebrow.

"No, don't apologize. It was my fault, and you know that as well as I do. You're just too gentle to tell me otherwise." Magnus smiled when Alec chuckled, seemingly unable to be angry at Magnus any longer. "It's just that I'm selfish, Alexander. I want you to be mine and only mine." Alec reached over to quickly kiss him on the cheek, leaving him wanting to pull Alec closer.

"Well, Magnus, I'm selfish, too." He reached over to pick up one of the two glasses of wine he had already poured, handing it to Magnus with a smile. "That's why I brought you here, to have you for myself." He dropped a wink as he brought his own wine glass to his lips, and Magnus found his heart suddenly skipping a beat at the thought of what Alec had in mind.


	11. K: Knife

"Dads?" Alec and Magnus both looked up from the letter they were reading together as their ten-year-old son, Max, entered the room. Alec quickly folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "Can I talk to you?"

Magnus shared a quick glance with Alec, looking just as concerned as Alec felt himself. "Of course, Max." Magnus's voice was a bit strained, a side effect of the worry building up in his mind. "You can talk to us about anything, you know that."

"I just have a quick question," Max said, moving to sit down on the chair across from them. They both remained silent, Alec reaching for Magnus's hand on reflex. "I was wondering if there was any way I could learn to fight." When his dads simply stared at him, he began speaking once more, this time much faster, as though trying to explain himself out of trouble. "I was just thinking that I'd really like to know how to protect myself, and if you," he motioned toward Alec, "and Uncle Jace were to train me, well, I'd be able to take on anyone."

At that, Alec smiled, knowing from the tone of Max's voice that it was more than just wanting to protect himself. Having one father who was all-powerful and another who had been trained to fight practically from birth meant that Max rarely had to worry about safety. Alec could tell that Max was wanting to learn to do what his entire family was able to do, he wanted to be more like his dads and protection was just his excuse.

This request was something that Alec found perfectly reasonable. From what Magnus responded with, however, it seemed like Alec was the only one who thought this way. "Excuse me?" His voice was tight, as though he was having to keep himself from reacting in a stronger way.

Max looked down at his feet then, suddenly nervous. "I, um- I want to learn to fight. Like a Shadowhunter." When he looked up, Alec could see the hope on his face. "Like Dad," he finally finished, looking directly at Magnus as though he was hoping Magnus would understand that part of the request.

When Magnus didn't respond again, Alec quickly took over, hoping to smooth down the situation before it got any worse. "Magnus, it's not like he'd be going in to battle. Jace and I know what we're doing, give it a chance."

"Why does he need to know how to fight? He's got powers, that's all he needs." Magnus seemed to have completely forgotten that Max was sitting before them. Alec softly chuckled, knowing he had Magnus cornered, even if Magnus didn't realize it himself.

"You've got powers too, but I seem to remember you being able to physically fight pretty well in the wars." Alec glanced over to drop a wink at Max who was attempting to hide his smile.

"Fine," Magnus proclaimed, getting up from the couch and walking toward the bedroom. "But when Jace accidentally stabs him with a knife, don't come running to me for healing."  
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"You're holding it wrong," Jace said, not for the first time that day. Alec could see the exhaustion in Max's eyes, but it seemed as though he wasn't going to give up any time soon. When Max gave his uncle a look of utter annoyance, Alec walked over to his son, rearranging Max's grip on the knife in his hand.

"Think of the blade as an extension of your arm, Max, not an object in your hand." Max looked up at his father with pure confusion. Today, they were focusing on knife throwing, something suggested by Magnus. What Alec didn't tell Max, however, was that Magnus's reasoning was that Max could throw a knife and then run away.

As Alec stepped back, Max concentrated for a moment more, then let the knife fly, finally hitting his mark for the first time that day. He immediately looked to Alec, a smile beginning to spread across his face, something that automatically made Alec smile as well. "Much better than me at that age, Max," he said, a trace of amusement in his voice.

At that, Jace snorted. "Darn right," he said, unable to hold his own amusement back in any form. "I think it took your dad weeks to actually hit the target, much less the center." Max was still smiling, and Alec could easily see that the thought of a young Alec struggling much more than him made Max happier than he wanted it to seem.

Walking over to the wall, Alec yanked the knife out of the target and whirled to quickly throw it end-over-end toward Jace who easily reached up to catch it by its handle. "What if he hadn't caught that, Dad?" Max's voice was a combination of terror and awe, his eyes wide as he stared at his father.

Alec could help but chuckle. "He always catches it, Max. If I had any bit of doubt he wouldn't catch it, I wouldn't have thrown it. We're parabatai. If he didn't know what I was going to do our parabatai bond would be pointless." He walked over and picked up a water bottle from the floor, gently tossing it to Max.

"Well," Jace began as Alec and Max moved to sit on the floor and take a break. "I'd love to stay and tell your son more about your training struggles, but it seems I have a date to get ready for." Alec glanced over to see Max rolling his eyes, the smile still on his face.

"Dad?" he began as they watched Jace leave the training room. "Can I ask you a question?" Alec simply nodded as he opened his own water bottle, worried about what Max might have on his mind. "I know I'm not that great at this whole fighting thing, but I was wondering if you would be willing to teach me how to shoot a bow."

At first, Alec was a bit surprised. That wasn't the kind of question he had thought Max was going to ask. For a moment, he was unable to speak, suddenly overwhelmed with a memory of his brother Max asking him the same exact thing. He looked away from Max then, unsure how to respond without betraying his feelings, not wanting to burden his son with such thoughts.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Max began speaking quickly, the liveliness gone from his voice. "Just forget about it. It was a stupid thought." As Max looked down at his lap, Alec reached over to take his hand, hoping to correct the mistake he had just made.

"No, Max, it wasn't a stupid thought. Quite the opposite, really." He gave Max's hand a gentle squeeze. "If you want to learn to shoot, who better to teach you?" Alec sighed with relief as Max's smile reappeared. Letting go of Max's hand, Alec quickly got up, motioning for his son to follow him.

When they reached the weapon's room, it took Alec a moment to locate the object he was looking for. "I was your age when I got my first bow," he began, reaching up to take a small bow from the wall, handing it to his son. "Should be the perfect size for you, too." Alec swallowed the lump in his throat, holding back from telling his son that no one had touched that bow since his Uncle Max had.

"This was your bow?" Max looked up at Alec, holding the bow like he was afraid of it. Alec simply smiled back at him, thinking about how much he and his Uncle Max really were alike. "That's awesome," Max said, looking down at the bow in his hands with such an amazed look that Alec could help but reach over to ruffle his hair.

Walking back to the training room, Alec began to explain to his son that he would have to commit to the weapon he had chosen. "It's not an easy weapon to learn to use, Max. It took me years to become even slightly proficient with it. Meaning you can't get discouraged when you don't get the hang of it right away. But as long as you're willing to stick with it, I'm willing to help you."

Max was looking up at him with an expression of pure excitement. "I'll stick with it, Dad, I promise. This is something I really want to do." Alec could see the joy in his eyes, see the happiness in his smile.

"Why is that, Max?" he asked, thinking that he might already know the answer. Max looked more excited at the prospect of learning to shoot a bow than he had over anything else he had begun learning over the past few weeks.

"Honestly?" Max asked, causing Alec to chuckle slightly. When Alec nodded, Max looked a bit nervous, answering after a few seconds of silence. "You're my hero, Dad. No, don't give me that look," he added when Alec's face slightly scrunched up in protestation. "I've heard the stories of the wars, don't pretend I haven't. Sometimes, I just really want to be like you."

Alec remained silent, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, with love for his son. "I've also really been wanting something that could be between you and me. I understand that you're not going to be here forever, and even though that hurts to think about, I want something that's ours. I want something of mine that you, and only you, gave me. "

The only thing Alec could do was reach over and wrap his arms around Max. He was afraid that if he tried to speak, his emotions would betray him. After a few long moments, Alec pulled away, looking down at Max and hoping his face showed only the love he was currently feeling. "Well, son," he said, a slight crack in his voice. "We'd better get started."


	12. L: Looking Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm really not sorry for what I've done in this one! I've had this head canon for a while!
> 
> Also, before beginning, know that I have kept Ragnor alive in this one for reasons you'll understand in a bit!

Alec looked at Jace with confusion as he opened the door, his expression definitely suspicious. Jace simply shook his head as he walked in the apartment, eight-year-old Max right behind him. Max had been out with Jace and Clary and their two children, all of them deciding to go ice skating seeing as there was nothing else to do with the city completely covered in snow.

The look on Jace's face said that he would begin speaking when Max was out of the room. "Did you have fun, Max?" Alec heard Magnus ask as he shut the door. He turned around to see Magnus reaching down to help Max take his winter coat and boots off.

"Yeah, Daddy. It was really fun! My favorite part was getting to watch Uncle Jace fall so much!" Alec couldn't help but laugh as Jace gave a look of humiliation.

"It wasn't my fault," he protested. "Mundane children kept running into me!" Alec's smile widened when Max began to laugh, more of a giggle than anything. "I'm gonna go change clothes, Daddy," he said once he'd regained his ability to speak without laughter.

As soon as Max was out of sight, Jace turned to Magnus and Alec a bit cautiously. "We, um. Well, we sort of had a bit of an accident." Magnus and Alec shared a short glance, both remaining silent, unsure what kind of accident Jace was speaking of. "He sort of fell once, and well, it surprised him more than anything, and his glamor sort of failed, just for a few seconds, but, well, one mundane kid happened to see his blue skin." Jace looked down at his feet, obviously wishing he could redo much of what had happened.

When Magnus and Alec continued to stare at him instead of responding, he continued. "Long story short, the kid screamed, but Max got it back up before anyone else could see it. So the parents didn't believe him. But the kid may or not have said the word 'monster' at some point in his fit."

Alec reached over to take hold of Magnus's hand, easily realizing that Magnus had stiffened at the word 'monster.' "I asked him about it already," Jace continued, his tone full of apology, a softness Alec rarely saw unless it was with one of the kids. "I picked him up and we went and got some hot chocolate. He didn't seem too bothered about it." Taking a pause, Jace finally looked back up at the two of them. "Which kind of worried me more, if I'm honest."

Alec felt Magnus's hand tighten in his. Before either of them could say anything else, Max reentered, and they both silently agreed to leave it for the moment. Somehow, without speaking, they had both agreed to regroup before talking to Max about what had happened.  
.  
.  
.  
Throughout the next day, Max seemed perfectly fine, as active and happy as ever. Magnus had been called to a Clave session on Downworlder equality, so he and Alec had decided to wait and talk to Max about what had happened after he got back.

Alec was currently on the couch reading while Max went to his room to play. Alec slowly began to realize that there was a constant noise that was intruding into his thoughts. It sounded like the water was running, so he got up to make sure Max hadn't left it on. When he entered the bathroom, however, what he saw caused him to stop in his tracks, tears immediately stinging at his eyes.

Max was at the sink, standing on the stool he used to watch his hands. It could have easily seemed as though he was simply washing his hands. What Max was doing, however, was far from it. The sink was quickly filling up with suds, a washcloth in one hand was furiously scrubbing at the other. In the mirror, Alec could see the tears freely streaming down his son's face.

Alec quickly strode over to Max, wrapping his arms around the boy and turning off the water in one swift movement. Before he could do anything else, Max began struggling against him. "No, Daddy! No! I need- I need to-" he couldn't seem to get the words out over his tears. He was kicking wildly, trying to get back to what he was doing before.

"Max, please," Alec's voice was desperate as he tried to get ahold of Max's hands, to turn him around and keep him still. "You need to what, son? Talk to me, please." He could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to keep himself from crying.

"I need to wash the blue away, Daddy," Max responded, his voice heavy with pain. At that, Alec forced his son into his arms as gently as possible. He all but pried the washcloth out of Max's hands, throwing it down on the counter and carrying Max back into the living room.

Holding Max in his arms as he continued crying, becoming increasingly upset was quickly becoming the most painful thing Alec had ever done. Every so often, Max would say something tangible, but Alec only caught snippets. Hearing things like "I don't want to be a warlock," and "I'm a monster," caused Alec to have to bury his face in Max's hair to keep his son from realizing that his father was crying as well.

The harder Max held onto Alec, the more he cried, the more Alec felt his own heart breaking. Without Magnus, Alec felt lost, unsure of where to go next or what to do, knowing that no number of kisses, no amount of ice cream or even the cheesy jokes they loved to share could erase what his son was feeling now.

After almost an hour of crying, Max drifted to sleep in Alec's arms. Alec had decided to wait on Magnus once more, unable to form any helpful thought in his own mind, too overwhelmed with his own emotions to do anything other than hold himself together. And even that he hadn't done so well.

When Magnus had returned, Alec had carefully explained to him what had happened, watching his husband's eyes fill with tears just as quickly as his had. They had fallen asleep wrapped in each other's arms, both hoping that the other would have an idea of what to do when morning came.  
.  
.  
.  
Getting up the next morning, they had immediately decided to call Ragnor. Magnus had admitted that he was unsure of how easily he could make it through that sort of conversation with Max, reasoning that Ragnor would be the next best person for the job.

Max stopped in his tracks when he entered the living room to see his Uncle Ragnor sitting with his dads. He reached up to rub his eyes which were still puffy from the night before. "Daddies?" he asked, his voice slightly strained. "Am I in trouble?"

Alec immediately answered, knowing that Magnus was still hurting, still processing his own emotions. "No, Max, you're not in trouble, sweetheart. Your Uncle Ragnor just wants to talk to you about something." Max cautiously walked over to Ragnor and climbed into his uncle's lap, looking up at him with a worried expression.

In a fashion very much like himself, Ragnor didn't cut any corners, but simply jumped right in to the conversation at hand. "I heard you're really upset about your blue skin, Max," he said, reaching up to gently brush the hair out of Max's eyes. When Max simply nodded, Ragnor smiled a soft smile. "Why is that, buddy?"

It took a few moments for Max to respond, he seemed to assess the situation, realizing that his uncle was there because of his own green skin. "I hate it, Uncle Ragnor. Everyone else hates it. It's not normal either. I just want normal skin, like my daddy."

Ragnor chuckled a bit, taking Max's hand, seeming to study it. "Which daddy, Max? Because they don't have the same color of skin." He paused for a moment, allowing Max to process what he had just said. "One daddy is white, and the other isn't. Just like how when you glamor yourself, you always make yourself look like your dad, Magnus. That's not white skin, Max."

Ragnor paused once more to wipe a tear from Max's cheek. Alec felt Magnus move closer toward him, so he leaned into Magnus's arms, looking for any last bit of comfort he could find. "What are you calling normal, Max? Because the mundane definition of normal is far different from even the Shadowhunter definition. Just because mundanes, and even some Shadowhunters, say that white skin is normal, that doesn't make it true." He paused to hold Max's hand up a bit higher. "There's no such thing as normal skin. Every skin color ever made is normal, Max, even if some people don't seem to understand that."

For a moment, they all sat in silence, Magnus wrapping his arms a bit tighter around Alec. "Max," Ragnor continued, pushing on in full force. "I understand that you feel bad about your skin, I really do. I've hated my skin before, too. No," he said when Max looked like he was going to respond. "Max, I've come to love who I am, and that's what I want for you as well. You must know that not everyone around you hates your skin. I, for one, absolutely adore it." He nodded toward Magnus and Alec. "Your dads love it, too. They wouldn't trade it for the world. The one and only reason," he added, putting emphasis on the word only. "That you have to use glamor when you go out is because the mundanes simply don't understand the Shadow world. If it weren't for that, no one would ever make you hide who you are, least of all your dads."

As he finished, Ragnor began to get up from his seat, keeping Max tight in his arms. After sharing a glance, Magnus and Alec slowly got up to follow him. Alec gave Magnus a quick kiss on the cheek, knowing that the situation was hurting him more than he was letting on. They followed Ragnor into the bathroom where he was holding Max up so that he could look into the mirror once again.

"When I look in this mirror," Ragnor was saying. "I see a young man that I am utterly in love with. Max, you should look at yourself with pride. Being a warlock isn't a bad thing, and you're more than what you are anyway. You're more than the color of your skin. You're a Lightwood. And that is something to be terribly proud of."

Max stared into the mirror for a few moments more, an unreadable expression on his face. To Alec, it seemed like an hour went by before Max finally spoke, his voice much stronger than it had been before. "You're right, Uncle Ragnor." Alec was surprised at what Max had just said, and he could feel from the way Magnus shifted on his feet that he was just as surprised. "If there's one thing my daddies have taught me, it's that everyone is equal." He reached up to wipe the tears off of his face as he turned around to see his dads.

"But," he said, a smile slowly appearing on his face. "I think I'd rather be a Lightwood than anything else. They know how to love the best." Max allowed a smiling Ragnor to help him down off his stool, immediately running into his dads' arms as soon as his feet hit the ground.


	13. M: Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This a (slight) continuation of the "Duck" chapter! I tried to get back to being a bit happier! Let me know what you think!

Magnus couldn't help but smile softly as he watched Max struggle over his magic practice. They were at the Institute, as they were most days when Alec had to be there to work. Max generally spent his days switching between training with his Uncle Jace and magic practice with Magnus himself.

Today, they were working on teleporting objects, something that Max was having a lot of trouble with. Alec seemed so stressed that Magnus had given Max a rose and told him to send it to Alec's desk. He had thought this was a wonderful idea, until he realized that Max was having more trouble than he had anticipated.

At the moment, they were talking a break to play with Max's duck, Will. In hindsight, getting the duck for Max hadn't been the best of ideas, considering the fact that they had to take the thing practically everywhere they went simply because Max couldn't bear to leave him at home.

"Magnus?" Alec's voice cut across the library toward Magnus. "Could you keep that duck quiet please? It's driving me insane." Max looked up at Magnus with a slightly concerned look. Magnus simply smiled at Max before snapping his fingers, silencing Will's quacks for the time being. "Thank you," Alec answered back, his voice slightly less strained than it had been a few moments before.

"Alright, Max. Back to practice," Magnus said, picking up Will and placing him away from them so that they could get back to the task at hand. He hid his smile when Max immediately sighed before moving back to the rose sitting on the floor in front of him.

He had succeeded in moving the rose a couple of times that day, each time only able to move it a few inches from its original spot. This time, however, Max succeeded on the first try; although it was still far from his mark across the room, the rose had ended up a couple of feet closer to Alec's desk than it had been moments before.

Magnus reached over to grab the rose and place it back in front of Max, giving him a genuine smile full of pride. After a few moments, Max's own smile disappeared and he regained his focus, obviously determined to get the rose to his Dad's desk. Magnus had to hide a chuckle at the expression of concentration on Max's face. He looked far more serious than any seven-year-old child ever should, and the effect was terribly amusing.

Something about the way he was concentrating, however, was different than all the other times he had practiced before. Magnus could easily sense that, even if the rose didn't reach the desk, this attempt was going to be much closer than any of the others.

Just before Max sent the rose across the room, Magnus was surprised to see something step in front of his gaze. He was so taken aback that he didn't have time to intercept what was about to happen. Max himself looked stunned when Will accidentally disappeared instead of the rose. He immediately got up to see if Will had appeared on his father's desk, looking frightened that Alec would be angry if such a thing had occurred. Magnus knew, however, that this was not going to be the case. Max had been so surprised when Will had stepped in the way that it was likely the duck had ended up in a different room entirely.

"Daddy?" Max turned around with an expression of pure confusion. "Where did Will go?" Without responding, Magnus got up from the floor and made a quick search of the rest of the room. When he didn't find the duck, he turned around to tell Max that they needed to go search the Institute, knowing that Max wasn't powerful enough to send anything out of the building just yet, least of all a living creature.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard an ungodly scream from just down the hall. At first, he thought that it must have been Clary, but a reassessment told him that even Clary's screams weren't that high-pitched. Alec, who was on the phone at the moment, looked at him with eyes filled to the brim with a mixture of confusion and terror. Magnus simply shook his head as he picked up Max and rushed out of the room.

He quickly made for Jace's room, knowing that if anyone would scream at the sight of a duck, it would be him. When Magnus entered the room, he set Max on the floor and, upon realizing that Jace was not immediately there, cautiously made his way to the bathroom. The sight that greeted him when he entered was one that stopped him in his tracks.

Jace was crouched on the toilet, wearing only a towel around his waist. He had what looked like a toilet brush in his hand, holding it as though it were a seraph blade. Will was on the floor just outside of the shower, simply staring at Jace as though he was trying to figure out what the crazy human was doing.

"Magnus!" Jace was practically yelling even though Magnus was standing a few feet away from him. "Get this beast away from me. Now!" Magnus reached up to massage his temples as Max stepped up behind him and was immediately thrown into a fit of giggles. "There is nothing funny about this," Jace wailed, looking down at Max as though he had suddenly sprouted a second head.

"He's just a duck, Uncle Jace," Max managed to squeeze between laughs. "He's not going to hurt you." Max stepped forward to pick Will up, his laughter not diminishing in any way. Magnus could see that he truly wanted to walk toward his uncle with the duck in his arms, just to see how Jace would react. Somehow, his son exhibited much more self-control than Magnus knew he would have ever had if the duck had been in his hands.

Max turned around and exited the room, saying, "You take care of this situation, Daddy," as he left. Looking back at Jace, Magnus felt as though he needed to take a nap. Dealing with Jace seemed more of a job than taking care of Max.

"Get down from there, Jace," he began, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "You look utterly ridiculous." As Jace cautiously stepped down, Magnus silently wished that Alec had come to see this with them, knowing that he needed something to take his mind off of the stress of his work with the Clave. "You have been a warrior since the moment you could walk. I swear, one of these days we are going to have an intervention for you and your fear of ducks."

When Jace looked at him with absolute terror, Magnus simply chuckled and backed out of the room. As soon as he reentered the room, he found Max tugging at his pants. "Daddy," he whispered, his voice overflowing with excitement. "I think I can do it now." He was holding the rose in his hand, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with anticipation.

In order to keep from giving anything away to Alec, Magnus simply nodded at him. He watched as Max stood still for a moment, focusing everything he had on the flower in his hand. Then, suddenly, the rose was gone. It took Magnus a moment to realize that Alec had stopped in the middle of his sentence, his constant stream of speaking suddenly interrupted.

Magnus turned around to see Alec looking over at them in bewilderment, slowly reaching to touch the rose that had appeared before him. Before Magnus or Max could do anything, Alec began speaking into the phone once more. "What? Yes, I'm here, sorry." He began speaking rapidly before whoever he was talking to could begin their conversation again. "I apologize, I'm afraid I am going to have to go at this time. I will speak with you more on this matter tomorrow." He hung up on the other person without waiting to hear what they had to say.

Getting up from his seat, rose now in hand, Alec slowly made his way across the room toward his small family. "Did you do that, Max?" he asked, his voice the sort of gentle that Magnus always associated with him. A smile sprung up across his face when Max began nodding enthusiastically. Alec quickly closed the gap between the three of them, immediately taking Max in his arms.

"You were working really hard, Daddy," Max said, looking at his father with the sweetest smile Magnus had ever seen. "Daddy and I just wanted you to know how much we love you." At that, Alec kissed Max's cheek, resulting in another fit of giggles.

"I know how much you love me, Max," Alec replied, walking backward into Magnus's arms. Magnus moved to kiss Max on the cheek as well, smiling at his son's laughter. "What I think, son, is that you don't know how much we love you."

Magnus leaned over Alec's shoulder, his smile somehow steadily growing. "You're our little Blueberry," he said, causing both Max and Alec to laugh this time.

"You know what would show me how much you love me, Daddy?" Magnus was momentarily cautious, weary of the mischief in Max's voice. He simply raised an eyebrow, worried about what his son might have in mind. "I think I have this whole teleporting objects thing down, so can we play a joke on Uncle Jace? All for magic practice, of course."

"Wait," Alec began, a smile beginning to form on his face as well. "Don't tell me that scream was coming from Uncle Jace. Was he screaming over Will again?" Max's laughter confirmed Alec's question, and Magnus had the feeling he knew what was coming next. "Well, I think teleporting Will would be very good for your practice. And if Uncle Jace just so happens to be in the way when you teleport him, I don't see the problem with that. All in the name of magic practice, of course."

As Alec turned around in his arms, Magnus could see the amusement in his husband's eyes. He could see how much Alec had relaxed and lightened up since he had put down his work and gone to his family's side. Magnus grinned slyly as they heard another shriek, this time coming from the direction of the kitchen. As Alec eyed him suspiciously, he began laughing. After a few moments of laughter, he was finally able to respond. "Everyone needs a bit of magic practice now and again, Alexander."


	14. N: Name

Magnus was fairly certain that he had never been so annoyed with Jace in his entire life, and that was saying a lot. He and Jace had been arguing over several Clave-Downworlder issues for hours, going in circles more times than Magnus could count. And with Alec currently in Idris and not there to mediate, he had the feeling that things would continue for a while still.

He leaned back in his chair, resting his head in one hand and began to massage his temple. "You're saying," he began, attempting to hold back the bitterness in his voice. "That you want me to vote for a Law that will set my people back fifty years and then tell them that I didn't know the extent of the Law, all in the name of keeping the Lightwood name polished?"

When Jace didn't respond, Magnus began again, his anger continually growing. "Well, I've got news for you, Jonathan. The Lightwood name was tarnished long before Robert's own parents were even thought of. I am not going to sell my people out just because I now carry the Lightwood name. You're insane to think I would. Not to mention the fact that warlocks, especially the older ones who know me, are not dumb. They'll know I got every drop of information. They won't buy that kind of story."

Jace simply stared at him for a few moments more, finally responding in an agonizingly calm voice. "Things like this are purely diplomatic, Magnus. It's about the politics of the matter." This only helped to enrage Magnus further, it was as though Jace looked at every warlock other than himself and Max as though their lives didn't matter. The change in the Accords that Jace was proposing he vote in favor of sounded like something Magnus would have seen in the Clave nearly a hundred years ago. There was no way he was going to allow it to pass. And as the new warlock representative, they needed his okay in order to pass the particular section that concerned the warlocks.

Before Magnus could form any more words, the door opened and Max walked in, clearly surprised to see his father and his uncle in the library. "Don't mind me," he said, quickly striding across the room to take his favorite seat. "I just came to read." Magnus watched as his sixteen-year-old son take the seat that his own father used to use to read. Sometimes he wondered how time had gotten away from him. Then he laughed at the very thought that he ever had a grip on time in the first place.

Turning back to Jace, Magnus picked back up, not daring to back down in any way. "Jace, the thought that I would ever vote to pass this Law is actually offensive. Just because the pigheaded Clave wants to take away almost every right they've ever given to warlocks, and Downworlders in general, and just because the majority of Nephilim and Downworlders alike are too scared to say anything about it, that doesn't mean that I'm going to allow them to do so. I have a duty to my people."

"What about your duty to your family, Magnus?" Jace's was beginning to raise his voice, and Magnus momentarily saw red. "This is bigger than a few rights that don't mean much anyway." Magnus saw Max look up from his book as if he was thinking, Oh, you've said the wrong thing now.

"Listen, Jonathan," Magnus said through his teeth, giving it his all to keep calm. "In case you hadn't noticed, your family now consists of Downworlders as well. So if you still happen to think that warlocks are below you, then go ahead and say it and we can move on from this discussion." Magnus paused, beginning to pick his words very carefully. "My people are my family, and I will not betray them for the sake of appearance."

"Me?" Jace was all but screaming now. "Think that warlocks are below me? That's honestly the most hurtful thing you have ever said to me. Magnus Bane, if you think for a sec-" Jace abruptly stopped speaking, taking a moment to realize the weight of what he had just said.

Magnus looked back at Jace with an expression that he knew had to be full of pain. Before he could say anything in response, however, he found that Max was standing right behind him, his face terribly grim. "My dad," he began, his voice colder than Magnus had ever heard it before. "Is a Lightwood." His statement was simple, but his tone said that there was no negotiating. He didn't waver even when Jace began shaking his head.

"No, Max, I know that. I didn't-" Max held up a hand to cut him off. Magnus idly thought that he needed to interject, that he needed to stop this conversation before it became any worse. But he was so shocked by what Jace had just said that he couldn't seem to move or speak.

"No, Uncle Jace. I don't want to hear that you 'didn't meant it.'" He paused for a second, resting a hand on Magnus's shoulder in a very symbolic way, as if to say that he would stand by his father no matter what. "So many people refuse to acknowledge Dad as a Lightwood. So many of both Shadowhunters and Downworlders refuse to recognize the rights that he has been given. You of all people know what his name means not only to him but to me and to your own parabatai. I never thought that you would be one of the people who would ever dare dehumanize him in such a way."

Finally turning to look up at his son, Magnus saw a fire in Max's eyes that he knew would not easily be extinguished. Looking up, he saw the one young man in the world that he was proudest of. He started to open his mouth, then realized that Max was far from done. "If you don't think that warlocks are below you, then prove it. Stop making their lives about politics and start pretending like you actually care about any of us at all. And most of all, respect my dad enough to call him by his name."

At that, Max turned around, looking as though he was going to leave the room on that note, but he immediately stopped in his tracks. Turning around with him, Magnus groaned internally upon seeing Alec standing there, his expression a mixture of confusion, hurt, and pride. Before anyone else in the room could move or begin to speak, Alec looked to Jace with an ice cold glare. "My family," he began, putting specific emphasis on the second word. "Is right. About everything they've just said. Magnus Lightwood is not the only Lightwood who will be lobbying against this Law."

With that, Alec glanced once more at Magnus and Max before turning to leave. Magnus could easily discern the hurt in Alec's entire posture.  
.  
.  
.  
When Magnus and Max returned to the apartment that night, they found Alec sitting on the couch, curled up with a book, clearly waiting on them. Sharing a quick glance with his son, Magnus moved to take the seat beside of Alec, silently hoping that he had had the chance to cool down, not wanting to upset Max any further.

"Max?" Alec began speaking as Max took a seat across from them. "I have a question for you." Max simply raised his eyebrow, a gesture that reminded Magnus endlessly of Alec. "I had someone come up to me today and ask me why you kept your name hyphenated when your dad got the chance to change his name. I didn't really have an answer for them, seeing as you simply told us that was what you wanted and we never really talked about it."

A soft smile spread across Max's face as he seemed to consider this question for a moment. "Well, Dad, basically put, I wanted a reminder of where this family started. A reminder of everything we went through, everything we fought for, and of what has made me who I am." In everything Magnus had ever thought about Max keeping his name as Lightwood-Bane, he had never truly thought of it in such a way. "I understand why Dad wanted to be a Lightwood, I really do, but I didn't want where we came from to be forgotten."

Magnus was fairly certain that he had never been so proud of anyone throughout his entire life. Looking at his son, he hated to admit that the man that Max was becoming could not possibly be entirely contributed to the work that he and Alec had done in raising him. That very thought was enough to send his pride soaring.

"Look, Dads," Max was looking between the two of them as though he knew they were too emotional to speak. "I just don't ever want to forget where we started. I want people to look at me two hundred years from now and know that I came from two of the most noble families anyone from the Shadow world could come from, that I had two of the best fathers anyone in this world could ever have, and that my name is a symbol of strength and love."


	15. O: Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a different version of the events that occurred at the end of City of Heavenly Fire.
> 
> I AM SORRY! (Not really, but I thought that might make you feel a bit better)

As the ground quickly came towards Alec, he felt for a moment as though he was going to break apart upon hitting it. Once he had actually hit the ground, and rolled as his instinct forced him to do, he realized that the feeling of breaking apart wasn't because of the impact. He felt as though he was breaking from the inside out.

As he slowly moved to sit up as best he could, automatically pulling his knees to his chest. He didn't want to look around, but he did, the last bit of hoping leave him as soon as he did so. He quickly saw Jace, who was looking back at him with such pity that he had to quickly look away. Beside of Jace was Clary, and across the room were Isabelle and Simon. Luke and Jocelyn had already been back for much longer than they had. Alec felt sick when he realized that the person missing was Magnus.

Of course it was Magnus, of course, after everything they'd been through, of course it would end this way. He had sacrificed himself to his father to get the rest of them home, and Alec could quickly feel himself drowning.

After everything, after all that he'd done to get to Magnus, he'd gotten there in time and still hadn't been able to help. He felt himself sinking in the feeling that everything that had recently happened had been his fault, that the fact that Magnus had not reappeared in Idris with them had been because of him. If he had just done one thing differently, if he had just said something differently, maybe it wouldn't be over now.

Alec heard Jace saying his name, he felt Isabelle come to kneel beside of him, but he couldn't register any of it, he couldn't even begin to process anything that was going on inside of him, much less what was going on around him. "Alec, please," Jace was practically begging. "You're shaking," Jace finished, and Alec could tell that he was freaking them all out, but he couldn't seem to control any part of him at the moment, not his mind or his body.

Jace took hold of one of his hands. It was balled into a fist, and Jace began trying to gently get it apart, get him to relax. He paused in surprise when he realized that Alec had something that he was holding in his hand. Alec looked down at Magnus's ring in his hand, suddenly feeling tears in his eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried in front of anyone, and obviously, Jace couldn't either because his arms quickly wrapped around Alec's shoulders.

To Alec's surprise, Jace simply sat with him in silence, understanding that there was nothing anyone could ever say. Before long, however, Alec saw his parents rushing toward them. Up until this point, everyone in the Accords Hall had left them where they were in the middle of the floor, not sure of what to do with any of them.

His parents started speaking very quickly, and Alec just let Jace and Isabelle take over the conversation mostly due to the fact that he was trying to fight down the feeling of numbness that was washing over him. He didn't register anything his parents said until he realized everyone had gone silent when Robert had looked to him and innocently asked, "Where's Magnus?"

Suddenly, it felt like Alec had been hit in the chest. He could feel his breathing becoming ragged, and he tried to pull his legs closer to himself, he tried to wrap his arms tightly enough around himself that he wouldn't fall apart. After several moments, Alec heard Isabelle softly respond, "He's not coming back, Dad."

For a moment, Robert looked as though he was going to begin asking more questions, but he seemed to think the better of it, somehow finally realizing exactly how his son had felt for Magnus. When Robert reached down to gently place a hand on Alec's. Alec knew it was meant to be a supportive gesture, but he automatically pulled away. He saw the hurt on his father's face, but he was beyond caring. Robert had hurt him more than he would ever realize, so Alec reasoned that if his feelings were hurting Robert now, that was hardly Alec's problem.

Alec tried to close his eyes to combat the lightheadedness he was beginning to feel. This only made things worse, seeing how as soon as he shut his eyes, the only image he saw was Magnus's own greenish-yellow eyes staring back at him. All he could hear was Asmodeus's voice, laughing as he took Magnus away from him.

Suddenly, he knew he had to get out of the Accords Hall, he felt like he was suffocating. He got up without saying a word and all but ran out of the door. Alec was unsure as to where he was going, all he knew was that he was going away, anywhere but there. The next thing he knew, he was back in the Lightwood's house, climbing the stairs to his room. Until he realized that he wasn't in his room at all, but the room Max used to use.

A few minutes after he heard a soft knock on the door and it opened to bring Clary in. He thought about telling her to go away, thought about completely losing it for the first time in his life, but he didn't have the energy for that, so he allowed her to come sit next to where he was curled up on the bed. "I know you don't want to talk to anyone right now, so I'll keep this quick, Alec." He could hardly stand the pity in her voice. "Your parents asked me to come make you a portal so that you could go home."

At that, he sat up, wondering why they would all do this for him. "Jace is ready to go with you, too. Just the two of you. Everyone felt as though you shouldn't have to be subjected to all the questioning that's about to happen." For a moment, Clary looked like she was going to reach over and place her hand on his, but she apparently thought this would be unwanted.

"Thank you, Clary," he said, hearing the strain in his voice. Instead of elaborating, instead of asking more questions, he simply got up and went to where Jace was standing in the hall. He allowed his parabatai to lead him through the portal and back to New York.  
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"Wait, Jace," Alec immediately said once they were in New York. "I know what you're going to say to this, but someone needs to go to Magnus's apartment." When Jace looked at him in confusion, he flashed a weak smile. "I bet Chairman Meow is starving by now," he finished.

Jace simply stared at him for a few moments more, looking as though he had lost his mind. Finally, he nodded, leading the way to Magnus's without question. On the way there, Alec tried to keep from thinking about where he was going, about why he was going there, but the way was so familiar to him that he quickly drowned in his memories of Magnus. The amusement of their first date, the feeling of their first kiss, the way Magnus's hand fit in his, the way Magnus used to dance around the apartment when he thought Alec wasn't watching. So many things were running through his mind that he didn't realize it when Jace stopped in front of the apartment door.

Alec just looked over to nod at Jace, indicating that it was okay to use a rune to break in, seeing as Magnus had asked for his key back when he'd broken up with Alec, it was their only way to get in now. Entering the apartment took Alec's breath away, and he was suddenly leaning on Jace for support. Jace was looking up at him with concern filling his eyes, but he remained silent, knowing that no amount of talking could ever fill the gap in his heart that was slowly forming.

The next thing Alec knew, the Chairman was trying to climb up his leg, meowing incessantly in a way that sounded so pitiful it was heartbreaking. He quickly bent down to scoop the cat up, striding to the kitchen to get out food for him. He soon realized, however, that the Chairman wouldn't leave his arms long enough to so much, so he held the bowl up in one arm and the Chairman in the other, knowing the cat would have to be hungry.

As soon as he had eaten, the Chairman climbed up into Alec's arms, quickly moving toward his face, as though trying to cuddle with him. It was then that Alec felt the tears coming back, so he scooped the Chairman up once more and buried his face in the cat's fur. "He's not coming back, Chairman," his voice was barely above a whisper as he began speaking. "He's never coming back. It's over. Everything's over."

He felt Jace sit down beside of him, and he realized that he was talking to Jace more than he was talking to the Chairman. Jace gently placed a hand on his back, a gesture that caused Alec's emotions to well up inside of him even more. "It's not over, Alec," he heard Jace say this, but he had no idea why he was doing so.

"I know it feels like it, but when two people love each other the way you and Magnus loved each other, that kind of thing never ends." Alec held onto the Chairman tighter, feeling as though he was the only thing he had left of Magnus. "You're going to see him again one day, you have to trust in that. But right now, you have to know that death is not going to stop Magnus's love for you."

Alec was going to say something in response, but before he could do so, the Chairman moved to start licking his face. Or rather, more precisely, he was licking Alec's tear away, which only made his tears flow harder. Jace seemed to notice this because he moved to tighten his arm around his parabatai.

After a few more minutes of sitting in silence, Jace got up and headed toward the bedrooms. Alec didn't move to see what he was doing; he didn't have the energy to do so. In a bit, Jace came back, a simple silver chain dangling from his hand.

"Give me the ring," he said, sitting beside Alec once again. Alec was slightly confused, but he did so anyway, putting his trust in Jace because that was all he had the strength to do. Jace quickly took the ring and put it on the chain, then he put the chain around Alec's neck in once swift movement.

As Alec reached up to touch the ring that was now hanging from his neck, Jace began to speak once more. "Wear this. He would want you to. It's not over until you make it so, Alec. If you want to keep his memory alive, if you want to keep your love alive, then do it. But don't do it at the cost of your life, your happiness. Live your life the way Magnus would want you to. Make yourself happy, keep loving Magnus, but don't let that love bring you down, that's not what he would want." Jace paused for a second, and Alec leaned into him, looking for any source of comfort he could find. "You're going to be okay, Alec. But until then, I'm here. I know I can't put the pieces back together; I know I can't fill the hole in your heart. I'm not even going to try. But my first suggestion would be that you take this cat, because he obviously loves you, and you lean on me until you're well enough to start building a life that Magnus would be proud of."

At that, Alec felt himself break once again, the image of yellow-green eyes etched into the inside of his own eyelids. He sat with Jace for a few minutes more, slowly drying his tears, slowing resolving that he wasn't going to allow Magnus's sacrifice to be the end of his happiness. He was going to make Magnus proud. He was going to uphold Magnus's memory, no matter how hard that might be. He was going to start over.

He got up and motioned for Jace to follow him. He was going to start over, but the first thing he was going to do was make Magnus a grave, right beside of the small grave he had personally made for Max just outside of the Institute.


	16. P: Protection

Magnus could practically see the steam coming out of Alec's ears. He was unsure that he'd ever seen Alec so angry, but then again, he was unsure he'd ever heard such idiotic Clave members speak before either. "Downworlders never deserved what they got from the Accords anyway," he heard a Clave member he'd never spoken to before say. "They've never appreciated everything we've done for them; why should we feel obligated to do any more?"

For a moment, Magnus considered chiming in, but Alec quickly beat him to it. "How about recognizing all the things that Downworlders have done for us?" he asked, his voice icy cold. "I'm not sure where you were during both of our recent wars, but I'm fairly certain we never would have won them without the Downworlders. Also, it's not as though they can't live without us. They were actually doing pretty well until we came along."

As Alec's words hit him, Magnus had to look down at his feet in order to hide his smile. The other Shadowhunter, however, looked as though Alec had suddenly grown another head, and Magnus knew that this was because what Alec was saying was borderline blasphemous. He wanted to be able to burst out laughing, but he knew that would only make the situation worse, so restrained himself like the adult he knew he needed to be.

He leaned back beside of Alec and allowed himself to endure two more hours of trying to shut out the terribly offensive comments that the majority of the Clave kept making. Each time, he felt Alec's hand squeeze his, and he knew Alec was trying to hold back from responding to them again. Somehow, Alec's presence calmed Magnus enough that he simply no longer cared much for what the arrogant Shadowhunters were saying.

As they got up to leave, Alec turned to him saying, "Let me walk you to the representative house." Since they were in Alicante, Magnus had no choice but to stay in one of the houses designated for Downworlder representatives, somewhere that Alec wasn't allowed to stay.

Sighing, Magnus turned to look at Alec whose eyes were full of an innocent concern. "I'm a four-hundred-year-old warlock, Alexander. You don't have to protect me constantly. I know you mean well, but you can stop worrying, I promise." To Magnus's surprise, Alec smiled at him, yet he didn't seem to relax in any way.

"I know I don't have to protect you, Magnus," Alec's voice was slightly strained as he responded. "I just really don't like how angry some of the Clave members were today, and I'd feel much better if I walked with you for now."

With that, Alec stepped out of hall and into the night, making it obvious that he would take no more debate about the matter. Magnus stepped out after him, quickly catching up in a couple of strides and taking Alec's hand.

They walked in silence for a few minutes until two other Shadowhunters stepped in front of them, halting their progression forward. Magnus immediately recognized one of them as the man Alec had responded to during the meeting. He could only assume that the second man was a friend of the first. They looked terribly angry, and Magnus could only imagine what they were thinking of doing. He slipped his hand out of Alec's, preparing to use his magic if needed.

"Don't worry," the man who Alec had spoken with began, looking toward Magnus. "We're just here to give this traitor what he deserves," he finished, nodding toward Alec. Magnus slowly stepped slightly in front of Alec, raising a hand in warning.

"No one," he said, his voice tight. "Will be doing any such thing." Alec stepped up closer to him, as though trying to say that he would fight as well while also staying within the protection of Magnus. Somehow, Magnus knew that Alec's hand was slowly going toward the seraph blade at his side, preparing for the worst.

The men in front of them both chuckled, sending a shiver down Magnus's spine. This time, the man looked toward Alec when he began speaking. "You're just as bad as any Downworlder. Are you honestly siding with this half-breed?" Magnus had been entirely ready to jump to Alec's defense, it was one thing for someone to attack him, but attacking Alec was an entirely different story.

But when the man called him a half-breed, he immediately stopped and tensed up even more. He could only hope that Alec didn't notice this. There was something about the word that had always affected him more than any other name anyone had ever called him.

Against his only hopes, Alec did seem to notice the change in Magnus's demeanor. He quickly stepped forward, taking Magnus's hand once more. "We're leaving," Alec said. "And if you so much as move to stop us, I will let Magnus do whatever he wishes to you." Alec's voice was so earnest that the men stayed where they were as Alec ushered Magnus around them.  
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Upon arriving at the representative house, Magnus silently began hoping that Alec would simply drop the matter, but when Alec rushed into the house and sat himself on the couch, Magnus could see that his hopes were in vain. "What's bothering you, Magnus?" He held up a hand when Magus opened his mouth to begin to speak. "And do not tell me that it's nothing and then ask me to leave. It's far from nothing and I refuse to leave you tonight. Let the Clave punish me for staying here. I don't care."

Magnus sighed and took his seat beside of Alec, knowing there was absolutely no way he could get out of the conversation now. "It was something, you're right, but I'd honestly rather not talk about it." He knew this wasn't going to keep Alec from asking, but he figured there was no harm in trying.

"Well, I'm sorry too, Magnus," Alec's tone was even and Magnus knew there wasn't going to be any negotiation. "But I think we need to talk about it. I felt you tense up; I know you, Magnus, stop pretending I don't. Something is really bothering you." Magnus sighed and put his head in his hands, currently having very little energy to deal with the conversation at hand.

Instead of speaking, Alec remained quiet, knowing that Magnus would continue if he simply waited, something that annoyed Magnus to no end. "Alexander, it's just that I really hate that word, okay?" For a moment, Alec's eyebrows scrunched together, but then it seemed to hit him. He opened his mouth to respond, but Magnus held up a hand to stop him.

"You have no idea, Alec. 'Half-breed,'" he repeated, his voice full of disgust. "I'm used to having Shadowhunters look at me as though I'm less than them. But that word," he paused for a moment, trying to keep his voice even. "It's as though they're saying I'm an animal. It's the most degrading thing I could ever think of, and it's the only word in the world that offends me anymore, about what I am or otherwise."

For a moment, it looked as though Alec didn't know what to do or say. Then he slowly reached over to take Magnus's hand. "I'm staying here tonight," was all that he said before he stood up and got Magnus to follow him to bed.  
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Having to go back to Clave the next day was like going back into a nightmare for Magnus. He hesitated before entering the hall, but then there was Alec, coming up right behind him, taking his hand and steadying his mind. It was his day to speak on behalf of the warlocks, and he could only imagine how the Calve was going to react.

Somehow, everything had gone fine while he was speaking, but as soon as he took his seat once more, what he had feared began coming true. "Why should we ever listen to what a half-breed has to say about the Law?" Someone from the crowd asked. "Like any of them would ever understand what would be best for the Clave."

Before anyone else could say anything at all, Alec stood up, indicating that he had something to say. For a moment, Magnus considered forcing him to sit down, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to do so. "You should listen to this man," Alec began, his voice strong and even. "Because he has been alive much longer than anyone else here, he's helped with and survived several of the Nephilim's wars, so if anyone understands what's best for the Clave, it will be him."

Somehow, the room was entirely quiet, no one daring to interrupt someone whose tone was quiet so demanding. "If you truly believe that this man, this 'half-breed', as you call him, knows less than you, is less than you, then you've obviously heard nothing of the things he's done for the Clave. Downworlders are not less than us, you can call that blasphemous if you wish, but the fact of the matter is that no one in this world is any better than anyone else. End of story. So I would enjoy it terribly if the bigots in the Clave today could stay in their seats and allow the rest of the Clave to work to actually better the world, as is the objective of the Nephilim."

At that, Alec took his seat, pointedly taking hold of Magnus's hand as he did so. For several long moments, no one else in the room so much as moved a muscle. What surprised Magnus even more than what Alec had said was the fact that the first person who did speak was Robert Lightwood. He stood while saying, "Well, now that my son has very wisely cleared that issue, I think we can all agree that we need to discuss what Mr. Bane has suggested." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Because I have to say that I do believe what he has suggested is for the best."

Magnus sat in silence throughout the rest of the meeting, watching people who had rarely spoken to him come to agree on nearly everything he had said. Alec simply sat beside of him, holding onto his hand with a soft smile remaining on his face.

As soon as he and Alec walked back into the representative house that night, Magnus took Alec in his arms and kissed him more passionately than he thought he ever had. When they eventually pulled apart, Alec looked up at him with eyes full of both love and confusion. "What was that for?" he asked, his tone genuinely curious.

"That was for three things, Alexander," he responded, resisting the urge to kiss Alec once more. "Firstly, it was because I don't think I can ever thank you enough for what you said. Secondly, and very simply, because I love you. And lastly," he paused once again, giving Alec a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Because I realized I really do need your protection sometimes." Alec smiled the smile that made Magnus's heart skip a beat before reaching up to kiss him again, ending all thought of further conversation for the night.


	17. Q: Quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just generally sorry for this one!

Putting down his book, Magnus got up from the couch, realizing it was much too quiet in the apartment. He decided to get up and check on Max when he finally realized that he had been re-reading the same page over and over for almost an hour, unable to focus on anything at all.

It had been just two months since Alec's unexpected death. He'd been killed while on a mission, making Magnus's worst fear come true, and had left Magnus alone with a nine-year-old Max. For the first week or so, Robert and Maryse had kept Max, somehow understanding better than anyone that Magnus could only handle so much at the time. The night that Magnus had picked up Max for good, however, Robert confided in him that they were worried about Max. The entire time that he had spent with them, he hadn't spoken a single word, no matter the situation; his only form of communication had been nodding or shaking his head. Robert had even mentioned the fact that they were fairly certain Max hadn't cried at all either.

Upon arriving back at home, Max had promptly fallen into Magnus's arms, silent tears streaming down his face in a sort of desperation that Magnus knew they were both feeling. The entire night, Magnus had simply held his son, knowing that no words could ever begin to help Max heal. The next day, Max had spoken his first words since Alec's death, simply coming to Magnus for a moment to say, "I love you, Dad." It seemed to Magnus as though each day should have been easier than the last, but he knew that he certainly wasn't feeling that himself, and he could easily tell that Max wasn't feeling this way either.

Over the next couple of months, Max had only spoken a few words here and there, only speaking to Magnus when he did so. Magnus had decided to refrain from pushing him, seeing as he had been by Alec's side when he died. He'd been at the Institute that night, having a sleepover with his grandparents, aunts, and uncles, when Jace had rushed Alec back in, unable to heal him with runes. Magnus had been in Idris at the time, so by the time they had gotten into contact with him or any other warlock capable of healing, Alec had been long gone.

Magnus came out of his thoughts as he walked in Max's room to see that it was empty. He paused for a moment before heading to the bathroom and seeing that it was empty as well. For a moment, he began to panic, suddenly worried that Max was much worse off than anyone might have thought. As he was on his way to grab his phone and begin frantically dialing, Magnus happened to pass his and Alec's room, as he still considered it, and notice a shade of blue that wasn't normally on their grey bed.

Slowly, Magnus walked over to the door, reaching up to knock softly before entering. He stopped short just moments after entering the room, seeing Max curled up on the bed, only his head and feet visible due to the fact that he was wearing one of Alec's favorite sweaters. His hands were completely covered by the sleeves, but he was still holding a picture. As Magnus began to draw closer once more, he saw that it was a picture of just Max and Alec. Magnus had kept it in their room because it was his favorite picture of them. Max had been about six when Magnus had taken it, both of them unaware that he was even there. Alec had been holding Max, both of them looking at one another and laughing at something, their eyes both filled with so much love that Magnus hadn't been able to do anything other than print it out and keep it.

As Magnus neared the bed, Max looked up, his eyes wide with worry. "Daddy, I-I'm sorry," he began trying to cover up for what he thought Magnus would be angry about, but he stopped speaking as Magnus swiftly scooped him up in his arms, sweater and all. Magnus sat down on the bed, keeping Max wrapped tightly in his arms. For a moment, it seemed as though Max didn't know how to react, he seemed to freeze in his father's arms, thrown off by not getting in trouble as he had expected.

Yet as he realized that Magnus was not angry with him, he quickly turned and buried his face in Magnus's chest, and Magnus almost immediately felt his shirt wetting with his son's tears. "Max," he began, giving his son a gentle squeeze as he did so. "You're not in trouble, son. I miss him, too." Magnus knew his voice was terribly weak, and Max seemed to sense this as well because he looked up at his father then. When he didn't say anything, however, Magnus decided to continue. "If you want that picture, you can keep it, bud," he said, giving Max a weak smile. "But I have a question for you."

Max just scrunched his eyebrows instead of responding, a gesture that reminded Magnus terribly of Alec. "What are you feeling right now?" he asked, reaching up to move Max's hair out of his eyes. "I mean, I know you're sad, we're all sad. But I just want to know how to help you, son." For a moment, Max simply looked up at him as though he was trying to read Magnus's face.

"Daddy?" Max's voice was dense with the sound of crying as he began to speak. "Do you think that I blame you?" His question was simple, but it nearly took Magnus's breath away at the innocence of it. He certainly did not want to admit that that was exactly what he had been thinking, but Max had seemed to pick up on that regardless. Before Magnus could respond, Max spoke once more. "Never mind, I can tell that you do. But I need you to know that I don't. I don't blame you or anyone else. It was an accident, and I may be a kid still, but I do understand that."

This time, Max was the one to give Magnus a squeeze, knowing that their conversation was just as painful for his father as it was for him. "You've told me before that Daddy is the love of your life," Magnus smiled slightly at that, knowing he had never before spoken anything so true. "You never would have let anything happen to him if you could have helped it. You wouldn't have left his side if you had known what was going to happen. I understand that, Daddy; I just really, really miss him right now."

Instead of responding, Magnus simple bent down to bury his face in his son's hair. For a while, they just sat there, remaining quiet, yet being somewhat comforted by the company of one another, or rather, as comforted as they could be at the moment. "I'm trying to feel better, Daddy," Max began again after a few minutes. "I know he wouldn't want us feeling so bad. But I just miss him so much." His voice began to crack at the end of his sentence, but instead of wrapping himself into Magnus once more, he did just the opposite, rolling up the sleeves on Alec's sweater so that he could begin to move around once more.

"Will you help me with magic?" was his next question, something that was completely surprising to Magnus. All he could do was nod, moving to sit beside Max as he reached to take Alec's sweater off. He carefully laid it on the bed before them, regarding it as though it was breakable. "Can you make Daddy's sweater my size?"

It took everything Magnus had to not groan out loud. He couldn't help but smile at the thought of having Alec's awful sweater around literally forever, knowing that if he fixed it for Max now, their son would hold onto it for that long. Unfortunately for himself, he was just as unable to deny Max the sweater as he had always been with Alec. With the wave of one hand, Magnus shrunk the sweater. As he watched Max, he saw his son's expressions go from confusion to pure joy at what else his father had done to it.

Magnus had quickly decided to add a few things to the sweater, just for Max himself. He'd added very faint, rune-like streaks to the part of the sweater that would lie directly over Max's heart. He knew that Max immediately recognized it as the shape of the love rune, seeing as he was being trained just as any Shadowhunter child would be. The rune, he had made out of a combination of white and blue thread, the color slowly switching from one to the other throughout the rune so that it could hardly be distinguished as just one color at any given point.

"Daddy!" Max jumped down from the bed in excitement, picking up the sweater as he did so. "I have to go see Aunt Clary right now. This gave me an idea." Magnus got up as well, but he must have looked as curious as he felt because Max looked up at him with a smile on his face as he led Magnus out of the door. "I've been trying to figure out something that we could make for Daddy that we could keep forever. And since Aunt Clary can draw almost anything, I want to see if she would make a new family crest, just for us." The smile on Max's face was growing, and for the first time in two months, Magnus finally felt himself smiling as well. "A Lightwood-Bane crest," Max finished, grabbing hold of his father's hand as he rushed him down the stairs.

"I'm tired of being quiet when I know Daddy would want me to start being the Lightwood he taught me to be." For a moment, it seemed as though Max was going to stop walking as he looked up at Magnus, the smile still on his face. He continued, however, his steps not faltering in any way. "You and Daddy have never been quiet about anything; not love, not rights, nothing. Now it's my turn to make a lot of noise, too."


	18. R: Retribution

Alec woke up to find the bed beside of him empty. For a moment, he began to worry, seeing that the light in the bathroom wasn't on and that he hadn't heard Max cry, and he knew there was no way he could sleep through Max crying. He rolled over and got up, grabbing a blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around himself as he entered the hallway.

It had just been a few weeks since he and Magnus had decided to keep Max, and they were still getting into the swing of things. Some days were worse than others, but Alec figured that everything in life was that way, and that once Max started sleeping through the night, things would be much easier. Some days, Magnus was so grumpy he was unbearable to be around, some days, Alec knew he was the grumpy one. Some days, it was Max that was the grumpiest, but in the end, Alec knew every second was worth it. The smiles, the laughter, the love, it was all worth a few seconds of tired grumpiness here and there, and he wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

He walked as silently as possible into Max's room, praying that if Max were asleep, he would remain so. He stopped in the doorway when he saw Magnus sitting beside Max's crib, one hand reaching in, gently stroking Max's hair. It was a terribly simple thing, but something about Magnus's posture made Alec pause. He seemed ridged and tense, very much the opposite of what someone who was sitting with their child should look like.

Magnus turned slowly turned around when he sensed that Alec was in the room. He didn't smile, as he usually did when Alec would come into the room, especially when they were with Max, and he seemed to somehow tense up even more.

Before Alec could make any sort of move toward him, Magnus got up and walked over to him, taking his hand and leading him out of the door, gently shutting it behind him as he did so. He just shook his head when Alec looked at him with question in his eyes. Magnus led the way to the living room instead of the bedroom, and Alec could tell that there was something that was bothering him.

When they were seated on the couch, Alec remained silent, not wanting to push Magnus into anything he didn't want to speak about and knowing that Magnus would begin when he was ready. After a few long moments, Magnus began. "I couldn't sleep because a lot was on my mind, so I just got up and went to watch Max and think." Alec moved to lean against Magnus a bit, a gesture that was meant to let Magnus know he was there for him.

"I'm just worried, Alexander. Honestly, that's all. If you want to go back to bed, go ahead. I'll take care of Max tonight." For a moment, Alec considered doing just that. A full night's sleep sounded terribly wonderful to him. But the more he thought about it, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, not after seeing the look on Magnus's face.

He shook his head as he responded. "No, Magnus, I'm not going to bed. There's something bothering you, and you said you're worried. I'm here now, so let's talk about it." He could tell that Magnus simply didn't want to talk, but he knew that if he waited it out, Magnus would begin speaking again sooner or later.

Magnus moved so that he and Alec were facing each other, but he wouldn't look up into Alec's eyes, which concerned Alec more than he wanted to admit. It was still a few moments more before he actually began speaking, his voice soft. "I'm just a bit worried about being a father, that's all." He was still looking down at his hand in Alec's, and Alec could sense that he really didn't want to talk about the topic at hand.

Gently, Alec responded, "Why is that exactly?" Magnus looked up then, his eyes full of a sort of unreadable emotion. Alec smiled softly at the sight of them, completely unglamored, the way he adored them. He had asked Magnus to start leaving the glamor off, to start showing Max that who and what they were was fine, and he had to admit that he simply genuinely loved Magnus's eyes as well and wanted to see them even more.

"I've been alive for four hundred years, and I have to say that being a father is the one thing I've never done until now. And all I can keep thinking is what if I'm not good at it? What if I completely screw everything up? What if I just become an utter failure, like my parents?" Somehow, it didn't surprise Alec all that much that they were having this conversation. Magnus was still understandably torn up about his own parents, and they hadn't really been thinking of starting a family when Max had suddenly ended up in their arms, so Alec could understand why he was nervous about it.

"You are not your parents, Magnus," he began, trying to keep his voice as even as possible, knowing that Magnus hated it when he could hear the gentleness in Alec's voice. "Everyone makes mistakes in parenting, that's completely normal. But that's why there's two of us. I'm here to pick you up when you mess up, and you're here to pick me up when I mess up. When, Magnus, not if. You can't let your fear of messing up keep you from being the absolutely wonderful father I know you're going to be."

At that, Magnus looked back down at their hands, so Alec gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Magnus, listen to me," Alec knew his voice was filled with a bit more force now. "I'm not going to pretend that I'm not scared, too. If we weren't worried I'd probably think something was wrong. But we just have to trust in each other because I've found that when we are together, there's nothing we can't do."

For a moment, a weak smile flashed across Magnus's lips, but that was gone quickly when he began to speak once more. "What if he hates me?" When Alec was so surprised that he couldn't respond right away, Magnus continued. "I've spent so much of my life hating my own father." It was a simple statement, and one that Alec knew to be entirely true, but there was so much desperation behind it that it nearly left him speechless.

"Magnus, listen very clearly please," Alec wasn't sure where he was going with this, but he continued nonetheless, hoping that he would figure that out when he got there. "You hate your father because he has done things worth hating. You are a good man, quite possibly the best I'll ever meet. And Max is going to know that, too." Alec saw the flash of a smile once more, but again, it was a fleeting one.

When Magnus finally looked up at him once more, the look in his eyes this time was unmistakable. He was full of pure sorrow. Alec tightened his grip on Magnus's hand, suddenly unsure of what to do. "I've done so many bad things in my lifetime, Alexander." Alec was just about to tell him that doing bad things doesn't make someone a bad person when Magnus continued speaking. "I'm so scared something will happen to him. And that it will be my fault. Retribution, if you will, for what I did to my parents."

At first, all Alec could do was look back at Magnus in quiet desperation, completely confused as to how to even being to respond. The last thing he wanted to do was to make anything worse than what it already was. "Magnus," he began cautiously. "I'm worried about something happening to him, too." Admitting this was possibly the most painful thing Alec had done within the couple of weeks that they had had Max. "After what happened with Max, I can't help but thinking of what could happen to our son."

Magnus simply stared back at him, clearly surprised that Alec was feeling the same way. Then it seemed to hit him that Alec had every right to feel that way, but before he could respond, Alec found himself speaking again. "We can't let our fears get in the way of this, though. Max is not going to hate either of us, and I can promise you that you are going to be an amazing father."

When Magnus didn't respond, Alec continued, not knowing what else to do. "He's going to learn things from you that the both of us never learned from our parents. How to love himself, how to stand up for himself and his beliefs, that he is perfect and loved just the way he is. When I'm worried about all the bad that might happen to him, I just remind myself of all the good that might happen to him. He might change the world, Magnus, we're giving him a chance that far too many kids don't get, and that excites me far more than anything else scares me."

Magnus leaned over to give Alec a quick kiss, one that was terribly gentle. It seemed as though he was going to say something afterward, but he was cut off by the sound of Max crying. Alec quickly got up from the couch to get Max's formula. When he returned to the living room, he was surprised to find that Max wasn't crying any longer.

He was in Magnus's arms, and he was as peaceful as could be. Alec walked over to hand Magnus the bottle, a smug smile slowly creeping across his face. "Shut up, Alexander," was Magnus's only response as he reached up to take the bottle.

"I didn't say a word," Alec protested, knowing that his voice was full of amusement. Magnus looked up at him as if to say that he didn't have to say anything anyway. "I was thinking, however," he continued, earning an eye roll from Magnus. "That this just sort of proves everything I was saying before. He's only a few weeks old and he already knows what a great father you are."

Magnus was about to respond when Max slowly reached out and took hold of one of Magnus's fingers on the hand that was holding the bottle for Max. Alec knew he didn't need to say anything else, so he simply sat back down beside of Magnus, smiling at the satisfaction that his little family brought him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next one is going to be a lot happier, I promise! Always feel free to leave a comment, I love reading your thoughts!


	19. S: Sweaters

"Absolutely not, Max. I will not allow it." Magnus was trying to keep his voice from wavering, but he knew the drill. He and Max would go back and forth for a few very short minutes before he would finally break down due to the fact that five-year-old Max was utterly adorable and that Magnus's heart was breaking with love for him.

"Why not, Daddy?" Magnus could already feel his will breaking as he looked down at his son's puppy dog eyes. He figured he needed to resist a bit more before giving in, just so he didn't damage his authoritative reputation, so he simply shook his head. "It would make Daddy really happy and you know it," Max's voice called up to him once more.

Magnus hated to admit that Max was right. He had a simple request, but it was one that Magnus wanted to fight for the rest of eternity. "It's just a party, Daddy. You love parties." Magnus had to keep himself from making a comment about the kind of parties that he actually liked.

"You know how much I dislike your father's sweaters, Max," Magnus replied instead, trying to keep his voice even. "The thought of having a party where everyone purposely wears sweaters even uglier than those your father owns simply makes my skin crawl." Max wanted to have an ugly Christmas sweater party. Magnus did not.

Max wanted to surprise Alec with the party, arguing that he would absolutely love it. It was painful to Magnus to realize that Max was entirely right and that, to anyone else, the party would be an adorable idea for a man who loved his already horrifyingly ugly sweaters a bit too much. Magnus just sat there for a moment, staring at his son and trying to not lose every ounce of will he had left, but knowing it was in vain.

Sighing, Magnus finally relented, only slightly able to imagine what he was getting himself into. "Alright, Max," he held up a hand as the boy began to bounce up and down in joy. "But," he added, using everything he had to keep a smile off of his face. "This party is your responsibility. You and your aunts can plan all of it."

At that, Max launched himself into Magnus's arms, at which point Magnus could no longer keep the smile at bay. "Thank you, Daddy!" The excitement was all too clear in Max's voice. "I'm going to make sure you like it, too, I promise!"  
.  
.

Magnus had been assigned the job of keeping Alec out of the house the day of the party. It was a perfect excuse for them to get some Christmas shopping done without having to lie to Max about where they were going. The only downside was that he was lying to Alec about why they had to go shopping that day in particular, but he hadn't really lied, per se, he'd just not explained the entire truth.

He wasn't particularly thrilled about the idea of coming home to the party, but at least Max hadn't forced him to wear a sweater. Clary had told him that having Magnus wear a sweater would look suspicious, so Magnus had dodged that bullet. At least for the moment.

"Magnus?" Alec's voice called out to him as the exited the Institute where they had left the presents so that Max wouldn't even try to figure out what they had bought. As Magnus looked over, he saw the question clear on Alec's face. "What are you thinking about? You seem really far away right now."

Magnus couldn't help but smile softly, knowing that he most likely looked that way because of the pain that the thought of the party he was about to enter was causing him. "I was just thinking about Max,  
he replied, not entirely lying.

Reaching over to place his hand in Magnus's, Alec smiled thoughtfully, seeming to relax more than he had in quite a while. "We've got a pretty good kid, don't we?" he asked, his voice just as soft as his smile. His question only served to widen Magnus's smile at the thought of what their child was currently up to. They walked the rest of the way in silence, something that Magnus found they did increasingly often the longer they were together, somehow both of them simply comforted by the presence of the other.

Walking into the apartment, Alec let go of Magnus's hand as he stopped on the threshold, clearly surprised by what was going on inside. Magnus had to admit that he was surprised himself despite the fact that he had been aware of what was going on. The apartment was beautifully decorated in gray and a soft sort of blue. Everywhere Magnus looked there was some sort of gorgeous decoration.

Then he looked at what his family was wearing and decided that was not entirely true. He was fairly certain that Jace's was by far the most hideous of the sweaters seeing as it wasn't so much decorated as it looked as though it had been through the garbage disposal a few times.

When Magnus saw that Max had even somehow forced a sweater onto the Chairman, he was about to groan. Then he turned back around and saw the look on Alec's face, and he immediately knew why Max had wanted to throw the party. The smile on Alec's face was so wide, so genuine, so full of joy that Magnus found himself wanting to wear his own sweater, if only to make Alec even happier.

"This has to be some kind of joke," Alec said, unable to hid the hint of excitement in his voice. Magnus rolled his eyes at Max, still knowing that Max could tell he was no longer annoyed with the party. Max ran over to Alec and reached for his father to pick him up.

As Alec did so, Magnus finally registered Max's own sweater, which had to have been made by Catarina. This was because the deep blue sweater had a torch on it, which would have been perfectly normal, but the torch was seemingly sparkling, even though the entire thing was made out of cloth. "It's not a joke, Daddy," Max said, pointing down to his sweater. "See, mine is the Lightwood symbol."

At this, Alec whirled around to glare at Magnus. "Did you know about this?" he practically demanded, but Magnus could hear the hint of hope in his voice. After so long of hearing from Magnus that his sweaters were hideous, it was obvious he hoped that Magnus might be a little keener on them than he wanted to let on.

"I was against it every step of the way," Magnus replied, not unkindly. He walked over to wrap his arms around Alec and Max as well. "Rest assured, Alexander, the world will not be ending any time soon." He sighed in contentment as he felt Alec's silent laughter beneath him.

"Wait, Daddy," Max was addressing Magnus this time, and he had the feeling that it wasn't about something he was going to enjoy. "You haven't seen my present for you yet." With that, he squirmed out of Alec's arms and ran toward his bedroom, leaving everyone waiting in anticipation.

Max ran back into the living room with a sloppily wrapped present in his hands. It was obvious that Isabelle or Clary one had allowed Max to wrap it himself with as little help as possible, and the simple sight of it made Magnus's smile grow even wider. "I picked it out myself, Daddy," Max said as he reached the present up toward Magnus.

Taking the box, Magnus went to sit on the couch. He unwrapped it carefully, reveling in the smile on Max's face as he did so. Opening the box, Magnus wanted to groan. Then he took the sweater out of its box and realized the mistake he had made. The sweater he was holding was the complete opposite of any sweater Alec had ever worn. The simple way in which it started out as a deep, dark blue on the top and slowly morphed into a lighter, royal blue was far more gorgeous than anything Alec would ever have had in his closet.

"Daddy has blue eyes, and I have blue skin, but you don't have anything blue," Max began, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. "I just thought that you might like something blue of your own." For a moment, Magnus couldn't figure out what to say, speechless from the mere thought of how wonderful his son was.

"Oh no, Max," he said, trying to keep the mischief out of his voice. "You messed up." Max's face fell immediately, and Magnus would have kicked himself for it if he hadn't already planned out what he wanted to say. Looking up at Alec, it looked like Alec would be the one to do the kicking if Magnus didn't start speaking again soon.

"You said this was supposed to be an ugly sweater party," Magnus continued, a smile slowly working its way across his face once more. "This sweater isn't ugly; it's absolutely beautiful." Max's own smile was replaced as well, somehow wider than it had been before. "How about," Magnus continued, bending down to kiss the top of Max's head before getting up. "I go put this on, and then I can teach you how to party like a true Lightwood."

Magnus couldn't help but laugh as he dropped a wink at Alec who looked horrified at the thought of their five-year-old son partying the way his parents had before. "Oh don't worry, Alexander. I'm still not going to look as good as you do in your sweaters." Magnus turned back toward the hallway feeling light with joy at the look of pure joy he had left Alec with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had originally planned for this one to be a bit funnier than it was, but I'm not that great at funny, so it turned out a bit softer and sweeter, but I really liked it in the end. Hope you liked it too! Always feel free to leave a review or even message me, I love hearing your opinions and thoughts on my writing!


	20. T: Trust

"We must look insane," Magnus said from where he was sitting beside of Alec, interrupting their sixteen-year-old son, Max. "Do we look insane?" He turned to look at Alec, who honestly did not have any idea of what to say or do. He was still kind of stuck on the fact that Max wanted to go study at the Madrid Institute. Alec had to admit that this sounded perfectly reasonable, seeing as Max had grown up training as much like a Shadowhunter as possible and teenage Shadowhunters often went overseas to study.

But the terror that immediately filled Alec's mind at the thought of Max being so impossibly far from him was the one thing that made him pause. Apparently, Magnus was experiencing the same sort of terror, but he was clearly showing it in a different way. "Dad, just hear me out, please," Max said, leaving Alec with the feeling that the three of them were most likely about have a much longer conversation than Max had originally intended.

It was then that Magnus and Max both looked toward Alec, wanting him to direct the rest of the conversation, causing him more stress and anxiety than anything else. "Max," he began carefully, not having fully developed his own stance on the matter yet. "We'll hear you out, but whatever we decide you have to understand is final." At that, Max sat down the way he generally did when Alec began to reason with him.

"It's just that the position has been offered to me, and I think that it would be really great for me to get the experience and the training." Max was no-nonsense, as always, simply jumping right in to the point he wanted to make. "Not to mention," he added, specifically eying Magnus as he made this point. "The fact that having a Downworlder with a position at an Institute would be one of the biggest steps in Downworlder rights since the Accords."

For a moment, Magnus remained silent. Alec did as well, but he was still struggling strongly with his own thoughts on the matter. He had to admit that for years, every time the slightest thing happened to Max, he overreacted. The simple fact of the matter was that Alec still partially blamed himself for his brother, Max's, death. The thought of anything at all happening to his son was enough to drive him nearly insane.

"You're sixteen, Max. There's no way we are going to let you live in another country without us there." Magnus's tone seemed utterly final, making Max look immediately to Alec, trying to find some kind of backup or support.

"Dad, please. He's not even listening to me," Max made this plea at Alec, and Alec found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he knew that what Max was saying was completely rational, that he would greatly benefit from the experience. His other hand, however, was screaming at him to not let Max out of his sight.

"I am listening to you, Max," Magnus continued before Alec could find any words. "You're making valid points, but I don't relish the thought of letting my teenage son live across an ocean from me." At that, Alec reached over and placed his hand on Magnus's, signaling that he finally wanted to speak.

"It's our job to worry about you, Max," Alec began, shoving back thoughts of his little brother. "You have to see why we're hesitant to let you go." He paused for a moment, trying to make sense of his emotions while keeping them at bay. "Maybe you can do something like this in a few years, but right now I have to agree with your father."

At first it seemed like Max wasn't going to fight any longer, that he was just going to accept what Alec had just said. Then he spoke once more, and Alec felt his heart drop. "It's like you two don't trust me at all. I've never done anything to earn any sort of distrust, and you both know that. You're both just overreacting as usual. Well, guess what, Dad; you're not going to be here to take care of me forever, so you might as well get used to that right now."

Alec had left his hand sitting gently on top of Magnus's, but when Max spoke, his fingers automatically moved to intertwine with Magnus's, searching for any sort of comfort. In all his thoughts about his son and his brother, Alec had never allowed himself to think about him mortality. That was a subject that he continually stayed clear of. After a few moments, Max seemed to realize the weight of what he'd just said, and he began trying to speak, but he couldn't seem to find anything to say.

"Dad, I- Look- I'm-" He stopped abruptly, looking down at his feet, knowing that he had said one of the two worst things he could have said given the situation. Alec felt Magnus give his hand a gentle squeeze, but that only served to upset him further, not wanting any form of pity from anyone, especially his all too immortal husband.

Getting up from the couch, Alec heard Magnus saying something to Max, but he didn't quite register what it was. The only thing he caught was that, somehow, Magnus's voice was not angry. He reached their bedroom and immediately sat down on the bed, reaching for the drawer of their bedside table. He reached in and pulled out a very old picture, the only picture he had of just him and Max, his brother.

Alec didn't know how long it was before Magnus slowly opened the door; to him, it could have been seconds, it could have been minutes. His thoughts were continually shifting from his little brother to thoughts of leaving his family. Magnus simply walked over and sat beside of him, moving to put his arms around Alec without saying a word. Alec gladly leaned into him, suddenly aware of the fact that his hands were shaking.

After a few minutes, Magnus finally spoke, his voice heartbreakingly soft. Alexander, you know how much Max and I love you, right?" Alec simply nodded, attempting to swallow the lump that was forming in his throat. "Then you must now how badly Max did not mean what he just said." When Alec didn't respond, Magnus continued, taking his silence as a good sign. "You have to know that as soon as you got up there were tears in his eyes. Alexander, I talk to him and he wants you to know that he only said that because he's hurting, because he's been thinking about your mortality a lot lately and he can't get it out of his mind."

Alec turned into Magnus, reaching up to take hold of his shirt. "The fact that our son is hurting over my mortality is supposed to comfort me how, exactly?" Alec could hear the ice in his voice, but that was something he knew he wasn't going to be able to fix. It was one thing to think about his death hurting Magnus, but it was another beast entirely to think about it hurting Max.

When Magnus didn't respond, Alec decided to change the course of the conversation. "The thing that hurts me the most, Magnus, is that he's right. About all of it. We don't have any reason to not trust him. Letting him go to Madrid would probably be one of the best things we could do for him. I just can't help but thinking about Max right now." It was a wonderful comfort when Alec didn't have to specify who he was talking about, Magnus simply tightened his arms in response.

They sat in silence for a few more moments before there was a soft knock on the door. "Dad?" Max's voice was quiet, an indication that he was scared of the effect his words had had on his father. "Ca- Can I come in?" His voice caught a bit, something that caught at Alec's heart as well.

Without stopping to think, Alec gently unwrapped himself from Magnus's arms and got up from the bed. He automatically walked toward Max, hugging his son before Max had time to respond. Before long, Alec heard, "I'm so sorry, Dad," coming from his arms. He pulled away then, looking down into his son's eyes.

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Max." Alec cracked a smile at the look of confusion that sprung up on Max's face. "The problem is that you're right. Completely and totally right." He held up a hand as Max began to shake his head. "We all know you're right, but you're not just right about my mortality, son. You're right about everything you said. We should trust you, and we do."

Alec didn't need to turn and look at Magnus to know that they were now in agreement over the matter, something that always refreshed him. "The world could use a strong Downworld leader like you, and your father and I would be terribly selfish to keep you from becoming that man. Sure, one day far too soon I won't be here anymore, but that doesn't mean that I don't know that you are going to change the world, that you are going to become the best man that world has ever seen, with or without me."

Feeling Magnus's arms wrap around himself and their son, Alec couldn't quite keep the emotion off of his face any longer. "Just promise me something, Max," he said, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice completely even. Max looked up at him with one eyebrow raised, an expression that looked all too Magnus-like. "Promise me that no matter how far away you get, no matter how old and senile I get, you'll still be my little Blueberry." Alec finally smiled as Max leaned into him once more, hugging him with both his arms and his laughter.


	21. U: Uncles

Magnus got up slowly, doing his very best to keep from waking up Alec who had somehow ended up curled up against him at some point during the night. He had set a sort of spell the night before that would work as an alarm clock but would only be heard by him. This was because today was Max's birthday. And not the birthday of their nine-year-old son.

He silently made his way across the hall to Max's room, moving to sit on the side of his bed. Magnus reached down to gently shake his son awake. Thankfully, Max was someone who always woke easily and who wasn't very upset at being woken up. That little fact had made their lives much easier over the years.

"Time to get up, Blueberry," Magnus said softly, smiling as Max let out a tired giggle. "I know it's early," he continued. "But we have a special mission this morning." At that, Max sat up and rubbed his eyes. He still seemed to be a bit too tired to say anything, so he just cocked his head to one side in question.

Picking Max up and carrying him toward the kitchen, Magnus kept quiet until he was sure the sound of their voices wouldn't wake Alec. He sat Max on the counter for a moment and finally clarified. "So, Max, today is your Uncle Max's birthday. That means that I need a couple of things from you." Max nodded in agreement, making Magnus smile once more at what a terribly sweet child he had been gifted with. "Your father is going to be kind of upset, so I need you to be on your absolute best behavior."

He reached over and picked Max up once more, setting him on the floor and reaching down automatically to straighten his shirt out. "But right now, I need you to help me make breakfast for your dad. We're gonna take it to him in bed and make his day a bit better. You know what his favorite is, right?"

At that, Max immediately smiled and nodded enthusiastically. "Blueberry pancakes, coming up!" he said, immediately going to get the stool he used when helping either of his dads with the cooking. Magnus knew that this was something unusual for them to do, but after watching Alec spend all of Max's last birthday absolutely miserable, he felt he was obligated to try to head it off at the pass this year.

About halfway through their cooking, Magnus heard Alec begin to move around, so he left Max with a part of the cooking that he couldn't burn and he went to force Alec to stay in bed. "No, no, no," he said as he entered their room and saw Alec beginning to get out of bed. "You stay right there, Max and I are going to bring you everything you could possibly need this morning." To Magnus's surprise, Alec didn't put up a fight, he just simply leaned back against the headboard and pulled the covers back up to himself.

In a few short minutes, he and Max entered the bedroom, Max carrying a large plate of pancakes and bacon with Magnus carrying everything that could have easily spilled. Upon their entrance, Alec's face immediately brightened. It wasn't the widest smile Magnus had ever seen on his face, but it was definitely an improvement upon how he had seemed minutes before, so Magnus took it as a success.

Max ran around to Alec's side of the bed and held the plate up, a huge grin on his face. "Blueberry pancakes from your Blueberry," he announced, helping Alec's smile to grow a bit wider. When he had transferred the food from his hands to Alec's, he climbed in bed beside of his father. Alec immediately wrapped his arms around Max, seeming to be content, but Magnus wasn't too sure he completely bought into it.

Things went perfectly fine, everyone was relatively happy, and then Max did something Magnus had not been prepared for. He had planned the day practically down to the minute, but he hadn't predicted what would possibly come out of his son's mouth. That had been a mistake.

"Daddy? I have a question," Max began, directing this at Alec. When Alec nodded, his mouth still full of food, Max continued, beginning the conversation that Magnus immediately knew would take them downhill from there. "What was Uncle Max like?" It was a simple, innocent question, and Magnus knew that Max was only curious, that he meant no harm, but the way in which Alec froze at the question was enough to break Magnus's heart.

Alec moved to slowly place his fork on his plate, his thoughts obviously filled with emotion that he was hoping he could contain. Magnus reached over to wrap his arm around Alec from where he sat on the bed, trapping Max between the two of them. When Alec began speaking, his voice was stronger than Magnus had expected it to be. "He was actually a lot like you, Max," he said, carefully choosing his words.

"He was kind and gentle and just an absolutely amazing young man. He had a heart for others, that's for sure. The world needs more people like him." Alec stopped abruptly, as though he had more to say but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Max seemed to understand this somehow, and he remained silent.

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, but when it seemed as though Alec wasn't going to touch the food anymore, Magnus moved to being cleaning it up. He was halfway out the door when Max spoke up once more, causing him to pause and have to catch the plates he almost dropped. "Daddy, what would Uncle Max want to do to celebrate his birthday? I was thinking maybe we could celebrate it for him."

Instead of taking the time to walk the dishes to the kitchen as he had originally planned, Magnus immediately magicked them away, turning back around to try to become damage control if possible. Alec's expression was surprisingly calm, almost entirely thoughtful with only a trace of the emotion Magnus knew he was feeling. After a few moments, Alec spoke once more, "He liked comics," he said, almost to himself.

Immediately, Max's face lit up. "Oh, Daddy, can we please go get him a comic? We can leave it in his favorite place in the Institute." At that, Magnus was having trouble keeping his own emotions out of the picture; he couldn't imagine what Alec's mind was like at the moment.

Slowly, Alec nodded, moving to get out of bed for the second time that morning. "I think I'd like that, actually." This seemed as though it was pointed at Magnus, a way to show that he wasn't as upset as Magnus likely imagined he was.

Magnus couldn't help but smile when Max spoke again. "We have to get Uncle Simon, too," he said, jumping off the bed. "You know he gets when we go nerdy places without him." Magnus was surprised to find that both he and Alec were laughing at the truth of Max's comment.  
.  
.  
.  
As Magnus walked out of the comic store with Max ahead of Simon and Alec, he was slightly surprised that things had gone so smoothly. Alec had remained rather stoic through the entire trip, helping Max pick out a comic for his uncle. The only time Magnus had seen him tear up was when he realized that the comic they were getting was going to complete one of Max's collections that he had been trying to complete for about a year before his death.

Magnus allowed Simon and Alec to fall a bit behind, knowing that Simon had really only agreed to come along with them because he knew what it would mean to Alec. "Daddy?" Max's voice pulled Magnus out of his thoughts as they made their way toward the Institute. "I have another question."

"Shoot," Magnus replied, hoping that this question wouldn't be as bad as the last Max had asked. He was silently thankful that Max was asking whatever it was when Alec was out of earshot, knowing that it definitely held the possibility of a flood of emotions with it. What he hadn't been expecting was for the flood of emotions to be directed at him this time.

"What would Uncle Ragnor and Uncle Raphael want to do to celebrate their birthdays?" Max began, reaching over to take hold of Magnus's hand as they continued walking. "I was thinking that maybe we could do something for all of them on this day every year."

Magnus had to force himself to keep walking, to pretend that he wasn't bothered by Max's request. He didn't want to think about Ragnor or Raphael, he didn't want to think about how they were gone. And suddenly, he realized that Alec was having the same sort of feelings, a thought that left him speechless with a dull sort of pain.

When Magnus didn't answer in a timely manner, Max seemed to catch on to the fact that his question had been a bit emotional. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he said softly. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just didn't want to leave them out." As he often was, Magnus was momentarily stunned by Max's kindness. It was a sort of innocent kindness that Magnus had only seen in one or two people throughout his entire lifetime, and seeing it on his son was a new experience entirely.

"That's okay, Max," he started, trying to keep his voice as even as possible. "I was just thinking about then, that's all." His lie was heavy on his tongue, and he knew that Max could likely easily see through it, but he left it there all the same. "They were both really selfless people, Max," he continued, genuinely at a loss as to what to tell Max they could do. "I think they'd like it if we did something for other people. You know, something in their names?"

Max remained silent, obviously trying to think of things they could do. They walked the rest of the way to the Institute without speaking again, both of them trying to work through their thoughts. Alec then led the way to Max's favorite spot, allowing their son to place the comic there. Before Magnus knew it, the rest of the family had appeared, Isabelle and Jace looking much the way Alec had earlier that morning, Clary looking as though she didn't know how to help anyone around her. Magnus had to admit that he knew that feeling all too well.

For a few minutes, they simply stood in silence, seemingly finding comfort in the fact that everyone was there to share in the pain and the memory. Suddenly, Max turned around and looked up at Magnus, an idea obviously having come to him. "Daddy, I know what we could do. For Uncles Raphael and Ragnor, I mean."

Magnus simply raised an eyebrow, trying to swallow the lump in his throat as Alec came to take hold of one of his hands. "I know I sort of wasn't supposed to hear you and Daddy talking about this, but the other day I heard you saying something about a warlock baby that had been hurt by Shadowhunters. Then I heard you talking about this young vampire who something bad had happened to because he didn't have anyone to help him."

Alec's hand tightened around Magnus's, a sign that he wasn't entirely thrilled that Max had heard that particular conversation. "I was thinking," Max continued, unwilling to allow anything to stop him. "I was thinking that maybe we could try to do something to help Downworlders. You and Daddy have positions in the Clave now, so you could both work on it. Maybe something like an orphanage for unwanted warlocks, or maybe like a school or something kinda like the Academy that young Downworlders could go to if they have nowhere else to go. I'm sure you could both come up with something better, but I think Uncles Ragnor and Raphael would really like that to be in their names."

Magnus had to admit that it was an idea he absolutely adored. He knew it would be a terribly hard thing to try to pass in the Clave, but he knew that if anyone could establish something of this sort, it would be himself and Alec. It was immediately one of those moments in which Magnus didn't even have to look at Alec to know that they were already in agreement over the matter.

He bent down to pick Max up, a soft smile slowly creeping across his face. "You know what, Blueberry, I think that would be the most wonderful thing we could ever give Uncle Ragnor and Uncle Raphael. And I want you to help your father and I establish it." Max immediately smiled, obviously surprised and thrilled at the idea that his dads would want him to help with something so important. "Why don't we go start writing out a plan?" Magnus asked, turning around to leave the room and find some paper.

Alec quickly followed them, seeming as though he was entirely happy about the idea of helping Downworlders as well. Magnus knew he would put his everything into getting it passed, just as if he himself were a Downworlder. As Magnus crossed the threshold with Max in his arms, he was fairly certain he could hear the smile in Alec's voice as he paused to softly say, "Happy birthday, Max," before reaching to take their son for himself.


	22. V: Valentine's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favorite one in the whole alphabet, so let me know your thoughts!

Alec was entirely sure he had never been so angry with Magnus, which was saying a lot considering all they had been through. They had been fighting for nearly two weeks, and Alec could hardly remember what they were fighting about anymore. It had started as a simple statement Alec had made about mortality and it had, as it often did, spiraled into a much larger argument about mortality versus immortality. They quickly found themselves going in circles, as they often did when this topic was concerned, but this time, it seemed to be a much larger problem than it ever had been before.

For a week they had kept things fairly quiet, somehow both agreeing through it all to keep things from their fifteen-year-old son, Max. That was going decently well, until they ended up screaming at each other one night over something Alec could hardly understand. It was like they had simply just lost sight of everything they had been through, of why they had allowed themselves to go through it in the first place.

It was like they were having the same argument from years before, just intensified this time. And Alec couldn't help but thinking that if it had broken them up before, there was no telling what it might do this time around. They had mostly been arguing over nothing, both of them understanding to some extent that they were now stuck. With an immortal child, there was no way Magnus would ever rid himself of his immortality now. And Alec was still set on not becoming immortal through any means of black magic or vampirism. Now, it seemed to Alec that they were just both brokenhearted, knowing that it was just a matter of time before the fact that they were stuck would become all too clear. But they were going in circles anyway, placing the blame on one another, knowing that it was all in vain.

Alec was currently in one of their spare bedrooms, trying to appear as though he was simply doing something and not sulking. Their fight the night before had ended in Magnus storming off saying, "Then don't speak to me anymore." At first, this had seemed rather welcome, but then Alec had woken up the next morning realizing that it was Valentine's Day and that he was most likely going to spend it in silence, trying to figure out how to piece together what was left of his marriage.

He curled up on the bed as the Chairman pushed the door open just a crack and hopped up on the bed. He figured he was afforded a nap, considering the fact that he had barely gotten any sleep the night before, worried that Max had heard their argument yet again.  
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Max was sitting in his room plotting, something he had been doing for several days now. His dads had been fighting in a way that he had never seen them fight before, and he was terribly concerned about both of them. Just last night, they had parted saying that they weren't going to speak to each other anymore. Normally, Max would just ignore those kinds of comments. But when he'd ventured into the living room to see if he could possibly talk to one of them, Dad Magnus had all but screamed at him to go to bed.

There was definitely something going on, something worse than the smaller arguments he'd seen them have over the years. And Max was determined to do something about it. There was no way he was going to just sit by and let them spend Valentine's Day in silence, both of them growing more upset by the minute.

He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He paused only momentarily when he saw Dad Magnus sitting on the couch, pretending to watch TV. "I'm going to the Institute," he said, knowing that if he asked to go his dad would most likely deny him. Max was relieved when Dad Magnus simply looked over at him for a moment before nodding. He became slightly worried when he realized that Dad Magnus was watching a cheesy romance movie, one that he and Dad Alec usually watched together, but he couldn't dwell on that for long, knowing that it was up to him to try to make things okay again.

As Max entered the Institute, he let his glamor fall down as he immediately headed toward the laughter he heard. The first thing Dad Magnus had taught him to do magic wise was to glamor his skin so that he could reasonably be out among mundanes. He always galmored himself the same way, looking like an impossible mix between his dads.

He entered the library to find the two people he was actually looking for, his Aunts Clary is Izzy. As soon as they saw him, their smiles widened, and Max was fairly certain that those were the first smiles he had seen in a few days. "Max!" Aunt Izzy began, her voice was bright as always. "What are your dads up to today?" Max walked over to sit between his aunts, that very question suddenly ruining his mood.

"What? You mean between the screaming matches and refusing to speak to each other?" He had intended for this to be sarcastic, so as to hide the pain her was really feeling over his dads' arguments. But his voice just came out cold and hard, not hiding his emotions one bit. "It's like it's a contest to see who can scream the loudest over absolutely nothing," he finished, feeling all the energy drain out of him at once.

Max felt his aunts share a glance behind his back, but he was too worn out to really care. It finally hit him that the past week of little sleep and constant worrying over his dads had really been taking a toll on him, and now he was just relieved that someone else knew about it. Before long, his aunts made him explain exactly what was going on. At first, that seemed reasonable to Max, until he tried to speak and he found tears welling up in his eyes.

After he had painfully finished telling them what was going on, they sat in silence for a few moments. Then, Aunt Clary finally spoke up. "Well, Max, what are we going to do about it?" The question immediately perked Max us as he suddenly remembered the entire reason he had come to the Institute in the first place. He smiled as he stood up and turned back toward his aunts, already continuing the plan he had been forming earlier.  
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Magnus heard the apartment door open, but he was too tired to go check on it. He figured Max could take care of himself. And if it was Alec leaving, he didn't really care either way. Or so he told himself. The truth was, he cared so much that it was bitterly painful. But he somehow couldn't bring himself to apologize. He couldn't see, to get over the things that they had said to one another.

He was utterly miserable, and it shattered his heart to think of the fact that Alec was most likely just as miserable. The worst pain, however, was the thought that Max was likely miserable as well. Because of them. The look on his face as he had left for the Institute had been filled with pain and concern, and Magnus had had to crawl back into bed to even begin to cope with it. Not that he was coping very well.

He wasn't sure how long it was before he heard another noise in the apartment. It suddenly struck him that since the door had opened, he hadn't heard anything at all. But he forgot about that as the bedroom door began to open. Max popped his head in, but he didn't ask if it was okay, he simply walked it without a word.

Max walked over to the bed and simply handed Magnus a single rose. At first, Magnus was terribly confused, until he realized that the rose he was holding was the exact color of Alec's eyes, the exact kind of rose Alec always gave him for any occasion. Magnus was going to ask Max why he was doing this, but he found that the lump in his throat would very easily morph into tears if he tried to speak. Before he could even think of what to do, Max had turned around and left the room, completely silent still yet.

For a few moments, Magnus simply stared at the rose in his hand, Alec's clear blue eyes the only thing he could truly see. Before he realized what he was doing, he found himself already halfway to the door, the rose the only thing anchoring him to reality.

Upon entering the living room, Magnus was stopped in his tracks by the sight of Alec, standing in the middle of the room, looking as though he had the same sort of mixed emotions that were currently coursing through Magnus. What stunned Magnus the most, however, was the fact that Alec was standing there with a rose in his hands as well. It was nearly identical to Magnus's, aside from the fact that Alec's was the exact color of Magnus's own eyes.

For a moment, Magnus wanted to stop and question Max, he wanted to figure out what was going on. But then it hit him that their son had simply wanted to fighting to stop. So he had given his parents the one thing that would help remind them of exactly why they were in love, the one thing that would remind them of what they had gone through to stay together.

Without wasting another second, Magnus closed the gap between him and his husband, taking Alec's face in his hands and immediately reaching down to kiss him. It was a relief when Alec didn't fight back, he just simply seemed to melt in Magnus's touch in a way that said they had been apart for far too long. The only reason Magnus pulled away in the end was that he couldn't keep himself from laughing when he heard Max mutter, "Well, it's about time."

Pulling back from their kiss, Magnus was almost entirely certain that they had never kissed with so much love and passion before. He lingered close to Alec for a moment, feeling a flood of emotion wash over him, trying to keep it at bay. Then he realized that tears were already streaming down both of their faces, so he figured a few more wouldn't hurt anything.

Finally, they both turned to look at Max and were surprised to find Clary and Isabelle standing there as well. Before either of them could do anything, Max spoke up once more. "We made you dinner, and there is no getting out of it." Magnus smiled at the no-nonsense way in which he said it. "You've already kissed so now it's time to go through with the making up."

It was a heart wrenching comfort for Magnus to feel Alec chuckle beside of him. For two weeks, he had wanted nothing more than to make Alec happy again, but he had had no idea of how he could even begin to go about that. Alec slowly broke away from Magnus and walked over to their son.

After giving him a long hug, Alec looked down at him with tears in his eyes once more. "I can never thank you enough," he said, obviously trying to keep his voice even. Magnus walked over to them and wrapped his arms around the both of them. "You're the best little Blueberry any two parents could ask for," Alec finished.

Max seemed as though he wanted to allow himself to cry as well, but Magnus watched with pride as he pulled away from them and turned back to his aunts. "Sit down," he said, still speaking to his dads. "We are going to serve you and then we're going to get out of here before any more 'kissing and making up' commences."

As Alec and Magnus both began laughing once more, Magnus led Alec to his seat at the table Max had set up for them. He pulled out the chair for his husband, and as he moved the chair inward as Alec sat down, he leaned over and gave Alec a quick kiss on the cheek. "You may not be immortal," he said, his voice only audible to Alec. "But you will certainly be my Valentine for centuries to come."


	23. W: White

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THIS! (Not really, but you can feel free to think that I am if that will help you get through this story)   
> It's one of my favorites, but I also cried while writing it....SO have fun!

The first few days after his dad, Alec's, death, Max wasn't entirely sure which way was up and which way was down. It wasn't as though Alec's death had been sudden, he was old, it wasn't like they weren't prepared for it. But somehow, knowing it was coming had made the pain much worse. Seeing his dad, Magnus, in so much pain had only proved to make things much worse for Max himself.

His dads had always been the two people he could count on no matter what, they had been his rock and his strength for his entire life. Every time he had been upset or hurt or needed anything at all, they had been the two people he could go to, no matter the situation.

Now, it felt like he had been stripped of everything he had ever had. Dad Alec was gone, and Max felt as though there was no way he could go to Dad Magnus with all of his emotions. He knew his father was likely feeling much worse than he was, and there was no way Max wanted to burden him with the extra pain.

He couldn't go to Uncle Jace because he had passed away several years ago. Max had thought fleetingly of going to Aunt Isabelle, but the thought that she had just lost her last brother was enough to keep him from doing so. Uncle Simon and Aunt Clary would always be there for him as well, that much Max knew, but the more he thought about it, the more he simply felt like he would be burdening even them with extra weight that they didn't need to carry.

Max was currently sitting in his dads' apartment, waiting on Dad Magnus to get ready. They had agreed that they would spend the day together. Dad Magnus needed to tie up some loose ends that were still left after Dad Alec's death, and Max hadn't wanted him to have to deal with that alone. He looked up as his father entered the living room and was immediately taken aback by what he saw.

Knowing that his father was hurting was one thing, seeing just how much his father was hurting was an entirely different story. Max began blinking back tears as he took in his father's wardrobe. Dad Magnus was wearing a pair of black pants with black boots and had put on one of Dad Alec's solid black sweaters. The effect of this alone made him look like a Shadowhunter. The most startling thing, however, was the white jacket he had put on over it.

It was a simple jacket, and anyone else would have most likely thought nothing of it. To most people, it would seem as though it was just a splash of color, just white to go with the black. But Max immediately knew it was more than that. He saw it for what it was, the Shadowhunter color for mourning, and he knew it was the first time in his father's life that he had ever worn white in this way. Before Max could think about it, he was off the couch, wrapping his arms around his father.

Max felt slightly off at having to be the one to comfort his father. It was such a switch from the usual being comforted by his dads that he hardly had any words. This made him decide to stay silent; he figured that Dad Magnus could infer that he was there for him when needed. When they pulled apart, Max was surprised to find the ghost of a smile on Dad Magnus's face. "Thank you, son," he said, his voice still full of sorrow. "I needed that." With that, Dad Magnus patted Max on the shoulder and made his way toward the door. Max sighed, knowing that the day ahead of them was going to be a terribly rough one.  
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As Max walked beside his father, he held back tears that would have been full of both frustration and sorrow if he had allowed them to fall. They had just checked off the first stop on their list and had bought Dad Alec a headstone. Even though he had been cremated and buried in the City of Bones, Dad Magnus had mentioned that he would like to make a memorial spot for him, a place where they could go to remember him, even if he wasn't exactly there.

This had been a wonderful idea to Max, until he had been forced to pick the headstone out himself due to the fact that Magnus was too emotional to do so. Max knew he had almost no right to be mad at his father, but he couldn't help but thinking that they simply should have waited a few weeks until they were both able to think about Dad Alec without breaking down.

It was then that Max realized he was following Dad Magnus but he had no idea where they were going. "Dad Magnus?" he called out since his father was a bit ahead of him. "Where are we headed now?" For a moment, Dad Magnus paused, his expression changing ever so slightly.

"Don't call me that anymore," he said, his voice colder than Max had ever heard it before. Max had no idea why his father would be acting this way. He knew Dad Magnus was upset, Max could feel the pain himself, but he hadn't imagined that he would ever ask Max to stop calling him Dad.

"E-Excuse me?" Max chocked out, trying to keep calm, trying to seem as though it didn't bother him. He knew he had failed miserably; he knew his father could see through that sort of act. Max risked a sideways glance at his father then and saw a mix of emotions that was impossible for him to read.

After a few moments of silence, Dad Magnus finally spoke again. "You don't have to call me 'Dad Magnus' anymore," he said, his voice practically dripping with pain. "There aren't two of us here to answer you anymore. You can just call me Dad." The finality to his tone hurt Max, but mostly because he knew his father was right.

Max had been calling them by their names for as long as he could remember. After he had learned to talk, it quickly became too confusing for him to simply call out 'Dad,' so he had begun calling them 'Dad Magnus' and 'Dad Alec' as a way to avoid any confusing situations. He supposed that Dad Magnus simply didn't want the reminder of what they had lost, he didn't want the reminder that they were missing a family member now. Max just nodded, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

Before he could think of anything else to do, Magnus came to an abrupt stop. "I would tell you where we're headed, but we're here," he said, making a vague gesture to the store in front of them. What Magnus had likely intended as clarification only proved to confuse Max further. They were inexplicably standing in front of a jewelry store, and unless Dad had someone moved on within the past few seconds, Max couldn't begin to fathom why he would need jewelry.

Max decided that the best course of action was to remain silent and to follow his father into the store. He watched as his father went to pick up something he had apparently already ordered; all Max could do was wait for whatever clarification he might get. As the store clerk went to get whatever Magnus had ordered, he turned to Max, finally realizing how confused his son was.

"I wanted something to remember him by," he explained. Max's mind immediately went to a ring. They had given Max the Lightwood rings that they had worn, wanting him to have them to eventually pass on if he ever had a family of his own. It made sense that Dad wanted a ring that he could always wear in place of the Lightwood ring.

What Max hadn't been expecting, however, was for his father to pull out a ring that made Max's heart absolutely shatter. The ring was quite possibly the simplest piece of jewelry Max had ever known his father to pick out, but its meaning made up for every ounce of simplicity. It was a silver band with small white diamonds embedded around the entire band. At the very top of it, however, the very last diamond was not white, it was blue. It was the exact color of Dad Alec's eyes.

Max couldn't do anything other than remain silent as he followed his father out of the store. It was all he could do to choke back the tears that were slowly working their way forward. Dad easily slipped the ring on his finger as they began walking down the street once more, and Max suddenly didn't care where they were walking. He was suddenly so filled with a grief so strong that he no longer really cared what happened in any way. Somehow, Dad seemed to sense this because he cleared his throat and attempted to mend things.

"I know today had been really tough. So thank you for this. You didn't have to come along with me." He softly nudged Max with his shoulder, attempting to lighten the mood. This only worked to make Max feel worse, so he simply stared straight ahead and followed his father.  
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After about an hour, Max found himself on his knees beside his father's gravestone, trying to wrap his arms around himself as tightly as possible. It felt as though he was going to break apart, and he thought that maybe he could keep that from happening if he hugged himself tight enough.

The tears that had been burning at Max's eyes throughout the day were finally slowly falling down his face. He was having trouble keeping them quiet and reserved, but things were only made worse when Dad Magnus wrapped his arms around him. "I know this doesn't help much, son," he began, his voice tight and controlled. "But I am here."

Max leaned into his father then, finally leaning on him in the way he had wanted to since the moment his father had left them. He just stayed like that for several long minutes, comforted by the fact that his father was there and that they were sharing in the pain and grief of their loss.

After a while, Magnus stirred for a moment, then handed Max a small box, keeping his arms around Max the entire time. He simply shrugged when Max turned to look at him. Max opened the box to find a ring identical to the one that Magnus had received earlier. He didn't have to turn around to know what his father meant by it. But Magnus began explaining anyway.

"You have the Lightwood ring, sure. But that doesn't mean anything about your father specifically. And one day, you might not have it any longer if you give it to children of you own. So I just wanted to give you something to remind you of where you came from." He stopped abruptly. It seemed as though he had more to say but that he was suddenly too filled with emotion to say it.

"I love it, Dad," Max quietly said, still looking down at the ring in his hand. He knew his father must have been confused when he began smiling, but he couldn't help it when he began thinking of something else. "There's just one change I want to make," he finished, finally looking up into his father's highly confused eyes.

Max reached down once more to touch the top of the ring, to touch the white diamond that was directly to the left of the light blue one. There, he used his magic to change that diamond to a soft yellowish green. "You said you want me to remember where I came from," he said, slipping the ring on his finger and looking up at his father once more. "If I'm going to do that, then I need to remember both of the best fathers the world has ever seen."


	24. X: X-Ray

As Jace heard the sickening snap of bone, he convinced himself that he was going to be dead before the day was over. Soon, he would be murdered by Magnus and Alec because their six-year-old son, Max, had apparently just broken his arm while in Jace's care. Jace didn't really know what had just happened, he had just heard Max gasp and then he'd heard the unmistakable breaking of bone.

He whirled around to see Max on the floor, his arm bent at an angle that would have made Jace nauseous if he had not grown up around war. To his surprise, Max didn't cry, he only winced, as Jace picked him up as gently as possible. It was then that Jace was the one who lost all control.

"Don't panic; do not panic," he said, all but gasping for air. "I-um, well- I can't do anything, actually. Crap. I can't do anything." Jace looked at Max with a bit of surprise when he saw the slight smile on Max's face. At least one of them was currently amused.

"Daddy would heal it with magic," he said, his voice only slightly tight with pain. Jace allowed himself to say a few choice words inside the safety of his mind. All he needed was for Max to repeat something he had said.

"Well, I'm not Daddy, and I can't do magic. If you were a Shadowhunter, I could just use a rune. But I guess we're going to be calling Aunt Catarina." Jace tried to keep his voice even, but he knew he was talking a bit too quickly. He didn't comment on the fact that Max was holding onto his shirt as though it was his source of life. It was obvious to Jace that Max was trying to be strong and to keep from crying, so Jace just held him and reached for his phone.

Naturally, Catarina was working when Jace got ahold of her, meaning they had to go to the hospital. Meaning that Jace's day was quickly turning into the worst thing it could possibly become. There was absolutely no way he would be the one to call Magnus or Alec, he had left that to Catarina as he made his way toward the hospital, telling her that his phone was about to die and that he needed her to do it.

By the time they made it to the hospital, Catarina had one of her rooms ready for them. Jace had rushed Max in as quickly as possible, knowing that it was hard for Max to keep up the glamor that he used on his skin when he was in so much pain.

"I can't treat him with magic, not here," Catarina said, sending Jace's spirits way past rock bottom. "I can be the one to treat him so that there aren't any complications in the Downworlder arear, but I'm going to have to treat him as though we were both mundane." To Jace's surprise, Catarina held up a hand. "Do not swear in front of him," she said, all but reading Jace's mind.

As Jace sat Max on the hospital bed, he was caught off guard when Max reached for his hand with his good arm. "Please stay with me, Uncle Jace," he said, his voice terribly soft. The little boy before him reminded Jace so much of Alec in that moment that it was almost heartbreaking.

"I'm not going anywhere, Max. And your dads are on their way, and they'll take care of you first before they kill me." Jace smiled at first as Max laughed at that, but that smile turned into a grimace as Max winced at the pain that his laughing had caused. He gripped Jace's hand even more tightly, still trying to keep from showing his pain.

After a few short minutes, Catarina came back in the room. "We're going to have to take you to get an X-Ray before we can do anything else, Max," she said, her voice so calm that it amazed Jace. There was no way he could ever do something like this for a living, he was already going insane after just a few minutes.

"Can Uncle Jace stay with me?" Max asked, his voice cracking. Jace knew it was only a matter of time before the pain got to him, even with the painkillers Catarina had given him. There was no way any six-year-old should be able to keep from crying after breaking their arm, Jace didn't care who they were.

"Of course he can, Max," Catarina's voice was soft and full of a patience that one can only achieve from working in a hospital. Jace moved to keep hold of Max's hand as Catarina began pushing the bed out of the room and down the crowded hallway. Every step made Jace hate mundane medicine more and more, but he wouldn't have let go of Max's hand for the world, so he gritted his teeth and kept going.

The X-Ray only took a couple of minutes, and they were soon back in the room, waiting on Catarina to develop the X-Ray and then come act accordingly. As soon as she left the room, tears silently began streaming down Max's face, and all Jace could think was that this was far overdue.

The thing that puzzled Jace the most was the fact that Max looked more frustrated than anything as he reached with his good hand to almost furiously wipe his tears away. When he looked up and saw Jace watching him, he began speaking, trying, and failing, to control his voice. "I can't let my daddies see me cry. I'm supposed to be strong, like them."

Jace tried to ignore the fact that what Max had just said had essentially broken his heart. "That's not true, Max," Jace responded, keeping his voice as soft and gentle as possible. "First of all, your dads don't expect you to be strong. You're a kid, Max, you're allowed to cry, that's part of being a kid." Jace took hold of Max's hand again and gave it a squeeze. "But your dads aren't always strong either, they just don't let you see that because that would hurt their reputations."

Max tried to smile, but Jace could tell the pain was finally officially getting to him. Jace desperately wanted Magnus and Alec to show up, he wanted to be able to let go of his responsibility as the adult in the room, but he also wanted to live a bit longer than what Magnus and Alec would likely allow him to for letting their son get hurt.

Jace thought that Max was going to say something else but he was interrupted by the door all but bursting open. "What happened?" Alec demanded, immediately pushing past Jace to get to his son. The thing that always surprised Jace the most about Alec was how gentle he could be. Even when he was worried or angry, as he was now, he was nothing other than gentle with Max, who automatically reached for his father.

Before Jace could respond to Alec's question, Magnus strode through the door as well, and Alec automatically held up a hand to keep him back. "Alexander, I told you that if Catarina wouldn't heal him with magic that I would," his voice was frantic in a way that Jace rarely heard it. He was caught off guard as Alec began to smile ever so slightly.

"Magnus, calm down, please. It's just a broken arm; it's not like Max is going to die at any moment." He paused for a second, an all too familiar mischief springing up in his eyes. "Jace, on the other hand, might be headed that way soon." Everyone in the room flinched as Max began to giggle once more, only resulting in a wince from the pain the movement caused. Alec's hands reflexively went to Max, comforting him in a way only a father could.

Max did rather well at his agenda of not crying until Catarina returned and wanted to set the bone back to where it needed to be before they could put the cast on. Jace sat back and watched as Magnus and Alec skillfully took care of their son sometimes wondering how they were so good at doing so.

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Max said through his tears after the cast was on. He was in Alec's arms, holding onto his father as tightly as he could. Alec reached down to wipe the tears from his face, which was now visibly blue, to all those with the sight, at least. Setting the bone had drained Max of the energy he needed to use his power to keep up his glamour. Magnus had taken up the task of making sure that he was covered as needed if any mundanes were to come in the room.

"Why are you sorry, Max?" Alec's voice had the unbelievably gentle tone that it often carried, something that Jace believed was characteristic of his gigantic heart. "There is nothing for you to be sorry for. We're just glad you're okay and nothing worse happened to you."

Max looked back and forth between his fathers with open worry etched on his face. "I'm supposed to be strong, like you two. And I'm not." At that, Max's tears began flowing in earnest once more, making Jace want to hug him as tightly as possible and take all the pain and concern away.

The worst part to Jace was the fact that he knew exactly how Max was feeling, so overwhelmed by all the heroes in his life that he felt as though he couldn't be anything less than the strongest person ever. "That's absurd, Max," it was Magnus who spoke up this time. "First of all, you're the kid. You're allowed to cry; that's why you have parents. We're here to support you when you need it. But secondly," he began smiling as he said this. "Your father and I aren't always strong. No one is, Max."

Surprisingly, Max began to smile, too. "That's what Uncle Jace said," he replied, looking back up at Alec as Alec gave him a gentle squeeze. Jace couldn't help but be anything other than relieved at the fact that Max was now smiling and looked as though he was getting further and further away from any more crying.

"Uncle Jace must be wiser than we all thought, then," Alec replied, trying, and failing, to keep the smile off of his face. Jace could tell that he wanted to remain angry, that he didn't want to give into Jace at all, but he was having very a hard time doing so.

"I take that to mean I'm off the hook, then?" Jace asked in an amused tone. Max smiled back at him, a smile filled with much more amusement than Alec's smile was filled with. Alec simply stared back it him for a moment, as though he was weighing the pros and cons of beheading Jace with a seraph blade.

After several long moments, Alec finally responded, and Jace knew by the tone of Alec's voice that he was, indeed, off the hook. It had always been hard for Alec to stay angry with Jace, and Jace was banking on that at the moment, but Alec's begrudgingly gentle tone told Jace that he was home free. "Sleep with one eye open, Herondale."


	25. Y: Yesterday

"Dads?" Magnus was pulled out of his thoughts of Alec by their ten-year-old son, Max. "I have a question." Max sounded slightly uncertain, as if his question might be unwelcome. After spending the day together, they were currently waiting on Clary and Jace to arrive. They did this each year on their anniversary, knowing that there would soon be a time when Alec was no longer there giving them the motivation they needed to spend half of their day with their son. The afternoon of their anniversary was always spent alone, with Jace and Clary watching over Max.

Magnus smiled as he and Alec gave Max nearly identical looks that said he was free to ask whatever he wanted to. "I was just wondering if you remembered the first time you saw each other." This immediately caused Magnus's smile to widen.

"Of course we do, Max," it was Alec who spoke up first. "We met at a party that your father was throwing." Alec smiled softly at the memory of it. "We went to take your Aunt Clary to find out about her memories, you know the story, Max."

For a moment, Magnus considered remaining silent about the memory that was suddenly at the front of his mind. It was something he hadn't ever mentioned to Alec, but after a few short moments, Magnus decided that telling him now would do no harm.

"Actually," he began, amused at the look of confusion that automatically crossed Alec's face. "I saw your father long before that day, although I doubt he remembers it very clearly." Alec was looking at Magnus as though he had suddenly sprouted a second head, and Magnus couldn't help but chuckle.

Magnus decided to address his story to their son, unsure he could continue in any seriousness with the look that Alec was currently giving him. "Your father was very young, and I doubt he ever even knew who I was, but the moment I opened my door at that party and saw him on the other side, I remembered it before anything else."

Now Alec was looking at him as though he was clinically insane, something that only made him smile more. "That day, I had been walking along when I heard a Shadowhunter mam screaming at a warlock woman for no apparent reason that I could see. He was calling her every name under the sun, full of rage and hate but never stating anything that she had actually done wrong. I had stopped around the corner from them, trying to figure out if it was worth using my magic on him or not."

The memory was such a fond one to Magnus that he couldn't help but reach over to wrap an arm around Alec. It was odd that a memory full of such hate could have ever turned into such a welcome memory, but Alec seemed to have that effect no matter how old he was.

"Just as I started to round the corner, still fairly unsure of what I would do, I heard another voice begin to speak, and I'm still fairly certain that I have never been so surprised." Magnus was happy to see that Max's smile was very large. "I turned the corner to see your grandparents looking desperately at your father as he looked up at the Shadowhunter with his hands on his hips and a very determined look on his face."

Magnus chuckled once more and continued, forcing himself to keep from looking at Alec, not wanting to know how he was reacting to this particular story. "I will never forget what he said, Max. 'Excuse me, sir, but just because you're jealous of this nice lady's powers, that doesn't mean you have the right to be a meanie.'" Magnus was flooded with relief as both Max and Alec began laughing. He had been slightly worried that Alec would not appreciate this story, that he would rather Magnus had kept it from their often sensitive son, but his laugh quickly cleared that up.

"I don't think that Shadowhunter had been planned on being called a 'meanie' that day, but he was definitely made speechless by it." Magnus gave Alec an affectionate squeeze. "When the man finally turned and walked away without saying a word, your grandfather acknowledged my presence. I can remember the proud look in your father's eyes when I bent down to ask him why he had done it."

At that, Alec finally spoke up once more, his smile evident even in his voice. "I remember that I told you that I did it because demon blood doesn't make someone evil just like angel blood doesn't make someone good." Alec reached over to give Magnus a gentle kiss before continuing. "I never made the connection that that was you before."

When Magnus glanced over at Max, he was amused to see the look of fake disgust on Max's face. "You still think that way, right Dad?" Max tried, as he often did, to hide the fact that he loved the affection shared between his fathers.

"Do you even have to ask that, Max?" Alec tried to look slightly offended at the question, but it was evident that the memory had put him in too much of a good mood for that. Before Max could respond, Jace opened the door to the apartment, announcing that Magnus and Alec needed to get out immediately because he had a crazy night without parents planned.  
.  
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Looking at Alec across the dinner table, Magnus noticed that he was chewing his food with a very thoughtful look on his face. "Magnus? How did you remember seeing me when I confronted that Shadowhunter?" Alec's voice was full of the innocent curiosity that Magnus was all too used to. "And why did you never mention it to me?"

Chuckling, Magnus took a long drink of his wine before he answered. This was usually the one night of the year that Alec would agree to allow both of them to drink, knowing that Jace insured Alec would not be called out on a mission as well as the fact that they would not be needed to take care of anything that Jace and Clary couldn't handle with Max.

"First, I remembered it because it was one of the most surprising things I had ever seen. It's not every day you find a Shadowhunter standing up for a warlock, especially not back then, and certainly not a child Shadowhunter. Second, I never mentioned it to you because I never thought it to be that important. I mean, of course it made a huge impact on me, but other than that, it's not as though it was a pressing matter in our relationship."

Alec thought about that for several long moments, taking a sip of his own wine. "I guess that's true," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I was just thinking about something that Max asked me recently, that's all."

At that, Magnus was intrigued, unsure of what Max could have possibly asked. "He asked me if I could be the one to ask you, if I would do it today, as an anniversary present from him." Alec smiled at the thought, but Magnus remained silent, knowing that Alec would get to the point much sooner if he kept his mouth shut. "Max would like me to ask you if you, Catarina, and Tessa would begin training him to take a position on the Council. He wants to follow in your footsteps, but he also wants to become a Downworlders' rights activist."

For a moment, Magnus was entirely speechless. It made sense that his son, his son who was just as gentle hearted and fierce as his husband, would want to do the same work that he himself was doing. It was just something that Magnus had not expected in any way. To his relief, Alec waited for his response in a comfortable silence.

After several long moments, Magnus finally spoke once more, a smile creeping across his face yet again. "On one condition, Alexander." He waited for Alec to incline his head, indicating that he wanted to hear the condition. "Catarina, Tessa, and I aren't going to be the only ones training Max. Max is going to need someone with a natural knack for these kinds of things to help teach him. Max is going to need you to train him as well."

Magnus leaned back and smiled at the thought of the life he had lucked into as Alec began to laugh. Sure, there was going to come a day when Max and Magnus were alone without Alec by their sides, but until then, Magnus planned on teaching their son to be the best man that he could be and enjoying the time he had left with Alec. After all, being the luckiest man on earth had to get you something, and Magnus's something turned out to be Alec himself.


	26. Z: Zipper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you guys are probably going to almost murder me at some point during this, but I have zero regrets! (Be thankful I didn't go with my first idea!)

Alec had been through a lot of hell in his lifetime, but he was fairly certain that what was happening to him right at that moment was going to be the one thing that made him lose all of his strength. Just that morning, he had told his nine-year-old son, Max, to zip up his jacket nearly a thousand times. He had told Max so many times that finally Max had said, "Daddy, it's just snow, not a demon attack."

If only Alec had hugged him one more time, if only he had told Max to zip up in a gentler tone, if only he had told both Max and Magnus he loved them just once more. Alec staggered to lean on a wall as he felt his chest tighten. In the end, it hadn't been a demon attack that had ripped his family to pieces, leaving both his son and his fiancé holding onto life by a thread. It had been a car wreck. The most mundane of things.

There were warlocks running around their entire apartment; Catarina and Tessa had called everyone they thought could help them save Magnus and Max. They had been hit from the side by a drunk mundane. The mundane had walked away with cuts and bruises. Alec was more than able to see the irony in that.

Catarina had said that Magnus was far better off, that since the mundane had hit them on Max's side and that Magnus was stronger in general, he was going to be much easier to heal. Max, on the other hand, was just barely clinging to life. He was a week away from his tenth birthday. Alec could see the irony in that, too.

Just as Alec's knees gave way and he felt himself slipping to the floor, there were hands coming to support him, pulling him back up on his feet and leading him to the one chair in the apartment that was vacant. Alec didn't need to turn his head to know that the hands were Jace's, he could feel the support of his parabatai without looking.

Jace was saying something, but Alec had no idea what it was. He was focusing on not throwing up everything that he had eaten for lunch that day. He was focusing on not completely and utterly falling to pieces. Maybe I should zip up my heart, Alec thought sarcastically. Finally, something that Jace said did get through to him. "Alec, stop trying to be the strong one, that's what we're here for."

It was then that Alec noticed the rest of the gang, all awkwardly standing in the corner, trying to be as out of the way as possible. Alec took a deep breath before looking back at Jace; his face was plastered with concern. "I have to be strong, Jace. If one of them wakes up, they're going to need me." He knew his voice was cracking, he knew he was about to break, and he knew Jace knew this as well.

Alec felt something drip onto his hand, and he finally noticed the tears that were silently streaming down his face. Magnus had once said that one always knew that Alec was brokenhearted if he was crying silently. It was then, Magnus said, that he was fighting back, he was shoving back at his emotions, but they were winning the fight.

Before anyone could say or do anything else, Catarina suddenly appeared before them, her eyes wide. "I am about 95 percent sure Magnus is going to be okay," she announced, obviously choking back tears of her own. Alec fleetingly wondered what it was like for her and Tessa, what it was like to be facing the loss of someone who was supposed to be with you forever.

No one seemed to want to talk about the other five percent. "What about Max?" Alec knew his voice was hoarse, but he also knew that he had to ask the question, he had to get it over with. Max would either be okay, or he wouldn't. Alec himself would either be okay, or he wouldn't.

Catarina flinched at the question, and Alec knew it was much worse than they had first thought. Everyone was silent as Catarina spoke, everyone was absolutely still, as though they were all holding their breath. "Max is much worse off," she spoke carefully. "We have to take him to the mundane hospital," she held up a hand as everyone immediately looked alarmed. "I will stay with him every second and keep his glamor up. There is no negotiating this, he will die otherwise."

Alec slowly got to his feet then, making the executive decision he knew needed to be made. "Get him there as quickly as you can, I don't care what it takes, I will pay for any of the consequences." Catarina nodded and immediately disappeared. Alec felt Jace's hand on his arm once more, but he shrugged it off, moving toward the room they had placed Magnus in.  
.  
.  
.  
Alec felt as though he had been there for hours. Then he realized he had been there for hours. Five hours and counting. And as far as he knew, it could take them another five. Catarina had gently explained that Max needed a heart transplant, that his was so damaged that no amount of magic was going to help fix it. Alec hadn't asked about the waiting lists he had heard about, he didn't really want to know how Max was getting a new heart, he didn't really want to think about the fact that his little Blueberry was on the operating table at that moment, fighting for his life.

Just as Alec was about to break down once more, he noticed that someone was slowly walking toward them. Alec couldn't help it, he all but launched himself at Magnus, who simultaneously chuckled and winced in pain. "Easy there," he said, his voice still a bit weak. "I'm not exactly at my strongest, Alexander." He staggered backward slightly, but Alec caught him, easily keeping both of them upright.

After several long minutes of simply holding onto Magnus, of simply wishing his broken heart to be mended, Alec finally helped Magnus into a seat. "Where were you going?" he asked, his voice soft with pain. "You wouldn't tell me, and Max was so excited." The pure joy in Max's eyes before they had left had been enough to make Alec smile up until the moment Catarina had burst through the door. Now all Alec could think was that he might never see Max's eyes again.

Magnus's face twisted in pain, as though the simply thought of it hurt him just as much as his physical injuries. "He wanted to get you a victory present," was all that Magnus said, but it needed no clarification.

Two days earlier, Alec had finally secured the change in the Law that they needed, the change that allowed Shadowhunters and Downworlders to marry in a Shadowhunter ceremony. It had taken him nine long years, almost ten, but he had never stopped fighting. That night, he had proposed to Magnus, surprising everyone, including himself. He had waited ten years, and he would not wait any longer. Now it looked as though he was likely to wait another ten years before he would find any true happiness again. If anything happened to Max- Alec forced himself to bite down on that thought, it was a dead end of fear and dread, and it was not one he would go down.

At Magnus's declaration of Max's intent to get him something for their victory, Alec felt all of the strings inside of him snap. The tears immediately began flowing once more, and, despite all the promises he had made to himself, Alec quickly found himself in Magnus's arms. He could hear Magnus speaking to him, so soft that no one else could hear. Magnus's reassurances that he was okay, that they were all going to be fine did nothing to suppress his fears.

"It's my fault," he heard himself saying. He had been feeling it the entire time. First his little brother, now his son. Of course it was his fault. There was no other explanation in Alec's mind. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Alec felt Magnus's arms tighten around him.

"No." Magnus's voice was firm. There was to be no negotiation. "Absolutely not, Alexander. It was the fault of the mundane in the other car. There was no way any of us could have known what would happen." Alec kept a tight hold on Magnus's hand; it was the only thing keeping him anchored at the moment.

"I'm losing him," Alec desperately whispered. "Just like Max." In moments such as this, no one needed any clarification as to who Alec was speaking about. At that, Alec noticed that tears began flowing down Magnus's face as well, albeit reluctantly. It was obvious that he was trying to keep a grip on his own emotions, but Alec could see that they were both equally struggling with this task.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours, just wrapped up in each other's arms, each keeping the other from falling apart. It felt like hours, but Alec knew it was only about half an hour more before Catarina came back out to see them once more. Her weary face lit up at the sight of Magnus, obviously surprised to see him up and about as quickly as he was.

Alec found himself clutching onto Magnus, fear suddenly gripping him that something might have gone wrong. "Would you two like to go see your little Blueberry?" Catarina asked, causing Alec to let out his breath in utter relief. If Max was okay, he would be okay, too. Somehow, some way, both Magnus and Max had been safely returned to him, and he could do nothing other than follow Catarina with a bit of a kick in his step.  
.  
.  
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"Daddy?" Max's voice was still slightly weak in the way that being on high-dosage morphine is prone to make it. "Wanna hear something funny one of the doctors told me?" Max had all but decided that he was going to be doctor when he grew up, and Alec supposed that there were worse things that could have come from having a heart transplant. Max had said, more than once, that the doctors who had saved him were like the mundane equivalent of his parents: heroes. The more Alec thought about this, the more he knew it to be true, so when Max said that he might want to be a doctor, Alec couldn't dare begrudge him any of those wishes.

"He said I'm part of the 'zipper club' now," Max announced, indicating the vertical scar that now went from the very top of his chest all the way to the top of his stomach. "Kinda like when you kept telling me to zip up my jacket," Max continued, giggling softly.

Alec couldn't help but reach over and ruffle his son's hair much in the same way he used to ruffle his little brother's. The all too familiar pang of grief went through him then, but he shoved it back down, the thought that he could have lost his family all at once keeping his other emotions from getting the best of him.

"You better keep this one zipped up though, Blueberry," Alec said, not unkindly. Max giggled again, and Alec thanked whoever was listening, not for the first time that day, for the painkillers that Max was on. They were quite possibly the most priceless things that Alec had ever encountered.

Max's eyes lit up as Magnus entered the room once more. He reached over the bed to hand Alec a take-out bag. Alec watched with concern as he attempted to sit down. Attempted was the word because he was still so sore from the accident that even standing and sitting was hurting him greatly. Magnus looked up to Alec and waved his hand in a lazy manner, trying to keep his pain hidden, but Alec knew him well enough to see through that.

"You basically gave us all a heart attack; you know that right?" Magnus asked through his smile. Max began nodding vigorously, causing Alec to laugh. He was generally amazed by Max's ability to make him happy when he felt the worst.

"Of course I did, Daddy," Max said, reaching over to take a fry from his father. "Uncle Jace says that's what kids are good for! But don't have a real heart attack, please; the zipper club is not taking members at the moment!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so first, in my very first thought about this story, Max did not make it out of the wreck alive. So...you're welcome!
> 
> Second, some of you may have noticed that the number of chapters for this switched from 26 to 27. Yes, I do know how many letters are in the alphabet, yes I do not care, and I wrote a bonus chapter that I will post later tonight!


	27. Bonus Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a bonus chapter for a couple of reasons! First, I really loved writing this and didn't quite want it to end! Also, I had this idea for a one-shot, but I didn't want to post it by itself, so here it is!
> 
> **WARNING: this story contains minor spoilers for Lady Midnight with regards to Malec only. I found out about this situation before Lady Midnight was released, so you may know about this without having read the book. This is something that occurs with regards to the Lightwood-Bane family! Read with caution!

"You're going to be fine, Alexander." Alec sighed with a bit of exaggeration as he tried to keep Magnus from leaving. He knew it was official Clave business, but that didn't matter to him. "The boys are asleep, there's nothing to worry about. You know I have to go; if I had a choice I would stay." Alec leaned in to Magnus's kiss, closing his eyes and wishing it to last much longer than it really did.

Alec knew he was much more stressed out about being left alone with his children than most parents would have been. It wasn't Max that he was worried about, he could take care of his one-year-old son any day, no matter the situation. He was worried about being left alone with Rafael, their five-year-old son that they had recently adopted. Alec had found Rafael on the streets in Buenos Aries; he was an orphaned Shadowhunter, living on the street, absolutely terrified because he had grown up thinking he was insane. Rafael hadn't had anyone to bring him up, he had no idea that he was a Shadowhunter, he'd been the equivalent of a mundane with the Sight.

They had all but fallen in love with Rafael from the moment they had begun to take care of him. Alec knew he shouldn't be complaining about anything, but the problem was that he simply couldn't communicate with Rafael. Rafael didn't know any English, and Alec's Spanish was very limited. The only thing that had even allowed them to adopt Rafael in the first place was the fact that Magnus's second language had been Spanish. But that didn't ease Alec's pain of not being able to talk to his son in any way.

"You've got this," Magnus said, giving Alec one last kiss before rushing through a Portal. Alec could tell by his posture that Magnus had wanted to say more, had wanted to try to comfort Alec, but the call had been urgent, and there was no way around the fact that he simply had to leave. Instead of going back to bed, Alec simply sat down on the couch, knowing that he would be unlikely to sleep easily.

It felt like mere minutes before Alec was startled out of his daze of a sleep by the sound of screaming. His first thought was that it was Max, who was still prone to waking up in the middle of the night. But then he realized that this type of screaming was more of the terrified type than the type that accompanies crying. He was almost paralyzed with a strange sort of fear when he realized that Rafael was having nightmares. There was no certainty that he would be able to comfort Rafael, and that thought scared him more than he would have thought possible.

He sprinted to Rafael's room, still quite unsure of what he was going to do once he was there. Alec paused in the doorway, taken aback by the sight of Rafael practically writhing, still caught up in his nightmare. After several more moments, Alec rushed to kneel beside of Rafael's bed, gently placing a hand on his son's forehead, trying to wake him gently to keep from scaring him even more.

Despite Alec's best efforts, Rafael still woke with a start, his eyes immediately becoming terribly wide. Within moments, Rafael was speaking in rapid Spanish, looking to him for comfort in the exact way that Alec feared all along. Alec reached to place his hand on Rafael's, fighting to find absolutely anything to do. To his surprise, Rafael reached out for him, the desperate kind of reach that only a child full of fear can do.

Alec moved to pick up his son and sit back down on the bed. Rafael began clinging to him as soon as they were back on the bed together, his face buried in Alec's chest, his hands balling up in Alec's shirt. At first, Alec had sighed in relief, thinking that Rafael would be comforted and that everything was going to be fine. After several long minutes, however, Alec realized that Rafael wasn't calming down in any way. His crying wasn't getting any better, he wasn't relaxing in any form, and Alec was quickly becoming desperate.

It was very obvious that Alec's Spanish was greatly lacking when he realized the only competent thing he could say to his son was, "Te amo." That only seemed to make things worse on Rafael's part, only causing Alec to become that much more desperate. Eventually, he began muttering to Rafael in English, knowing that it wasn't going to help anything but unable to do anything else.

"I'm sorry, Rafe, I'm so, so sorry," Alec knew he was saying this to comfort himself more than anything, but he couldn't find anything else to do. Before long, Alec felt silent tears on his own face, and he reached up to wipe them away before Rafael could notice they were there. It was so unlike him to cry at almost anything that Alec was shocked by his own actions. He knew it was because of his deep frustration at the situation, but he couldn't help but hating it.

They stayed like that for what felt like an hour, Rafael's crying slowly tapering off. The longer it went on, the worse Alec felt, his heart breaking at everything that was going on. He had felt a lot of pain throughout his life, but this was a new kind of pain. Up until this point, not being able to communicate with Rafael had been a nuisance, a challenge in their day-to-day life. Now, it was so much more than that that Alec hardly knew how he felt any more.

When Rafael finally stopped crying, Alec leaned back in bed with him, keeping a tight hold on his son, refusing to let go. Or at least he thought he was going to refuse to let go, until Max began crying. "Of course. This is only natural. Of course," Alec muttered as he gently placed Rafael back on his bed, before making his way across the hall to Max's room.

Comforting Max was much easier to Alec than comforting Rafael had been. He simply picked Max up and went to sit with him in the rocking chair Magnus had found for the nursery. Generally, it only took Alec a minute or two to calm Max down, but for some reason, he continued crying far beyond when Alec thought he would have stopped.

Just as he was becoming desperate once more, the door to Max's room began to creep open. Alec first thought that it was Magnus, but he was terribly surprised to see Rafael standing in the doorway. Before he could figure out anything to say or do, Rafael walked over to him, holding out his blanket, the one thing he had brought with him from Buenos Aries, the one thing he was undeniably attached to.

It took Alec several long moments to realize that he was holding out his blanket because he thought it would comfort Max. Alec reached out for it and handed it to Max who very surprisingly immediately calmed down, taking the blanket and snuggling up against it. At that, Alec got up and bent down next to Rafael. "Gracias," he said, moving to pick Rafael up with his free arm.

Alec took both of his sons back to his and Magnus's room, laying down with an arm around each one. He was pleasantly surprised when Rafael moved to snuggle up to Alec as close as he could possibly get. Alec still had no idea what the nightmares had been about, but he figured he would let Magnus worry about that in the morning.

The next thing Alec knew, he was waking up to the sound of the door creaking open. He barely had time to register the fact that Magnus had peaked in, smiled wider than most people would have at that time of the morning, and then retreated to one of the guest bedrooms before he fell back asleep, nestled in between his sons, feeling for the first time in a while that things were finally going to be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me through this story! Let me know your thoughts on it; you know I love hearing from you about my writing! 
> 
> I'd love to hear any of your opinions on any of my chapters! I hope you enjoyed them all, and who knows, there may be another bonus chapter in the future!


	28. Bonus: Round 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm adding this story here so that I can finally do what I forgot to do on every other chapter of this stupid alphabet, and give someone credit who deserves more credit than I could ever give her! Far too many of the words or ideas from this alphabet (including the following chapter) came from my cousin, Laura! Her username on fanfiction.net is laura-maeve! I could talk to you guys all day about what she did for this alphabet, but let's just say that, without her help, it probably never would have been finished! The same can be said of my Saphael Alphabet as well! Without her help, I probably would have given up on writing before I ever even finished my first fic! So finally, here's the credit that she deserves! Love you guys and thank you for sticking with me!

Magnus's first thought when the Institute called him was that he did not, under any circumstance, want to answer the phone. Since Alec's death, calls from the Institute had become few and far between, but now that Jace was the only one left alive from their group, the calls that did come were only a painful reminder of all that Magnus had lost. Sure, he still had Max and Rafael and Jace and Clary's kids as well as Simon and Isabelle's, but things simply weren't the same anymore, so Magnus had taken to distancing himself from anything that had to do with the Institute.

He wasn't sure what actually made him answer the phone that day, but he seemed to get the sense that he was needed, that it wasn't just a call for help. Yet when Magnus answered the phone to hear Rafael telling him that Jace was dying, he almost wished he hadn't answered at all. Of course, this was no surprise at all, or at least, it shouldn't have been. Jace was nearing eighty, an age almost unheard of in the Shadowhunter realm. And yet the weight of Rafael's words hit Magnus harder than he might have imagined.

This time, Magnus's trip to the Institute was far different from any trip he had ever taken before. This time, he knew he wouldn't leave the Institute the same man that he was at this very moment; this time, he knew that, when he left, Jace would be gone, the last of his little family would be gone. Magnus tamped down guilt at that thought. He still had his children, his nieces and nephews, but the loss of Jace would mean the changing of an era, and it was something Magnus knew he wasn't prepared for.

The thing that had truly motivated Magnus was the reason Rafael gave him for coming to see Jace one last time. For years, Jace had hardly known who he was; Catarina had diagnosed him with Alzheimer's just years before Clary left them. But Rafael had insisted that Jace was coherent, that he was asking for Magnus, and this was something that Magnus couldn't ignore. Shadowhunters had no treatment for Alzheimer's in any form; they rarely lived long enough for the disease to be seen, so when Jace had begun showing signs of it, no one had seemed to know what to do.

The only person that could ever seem to comfort Jace in any way was Alec. When Jace became upset, confused and unsure of who he was or even where he was, Alec was the only one who could talk to him at all. Sometimes, all it took was for Alec to show Jace his parabatai rune and Jace would immediately relax. For years, Magnus had almost guiltily avoided Jace, especially after Alec's death. Seeing Jace after the disease had taken over had always been hard, but hearing Jace ask for Alec, the only name he could remember, after Alec was gone was another story entirely. Many speculated that Jace simply remembered Alec because of their parabatai bond, but that didn't help Magnus's pain in any way.

Walking into the Institute was always hard for Magnus. He knew he was welcome in the New York Institute, but centuries of feeling like an outsider couldn't be erased by a few decades of being part of a Shadowhunter family. This time, he felt the same stabbing pain that he always felt, a longing for Alec so strong that he knew nothing would ever take it away from him. He briefly paused to hug Rafael and Max before they told him which room Jace was in. Magnus convinced them that he would be fine when they asked if he wanted them to accompany him to see Jace, walking down the halls of the Institute on his own, and trying to shut out his memories of Alec and the others.

Entering Jace's room was the last thing Magnus wanted to do, but he was presently surprised when he saw that Jace was sitting up, smiling at Magnus when he realized who it was. "You didn't believe Rafael when he told you I actually remembered, did you?" he asked as Magnus came to sit on the edge of his bed. The only thing Magnus could do was nod, not trusting his voice, knowing that his pain would be evident. Magnus was surprised when Jace reached over to take his hand, the gesture much gentler than Jace had ever been before, at least with him. "You're wondering why I wanted to speak with you."

This wasn't a question, but Magnus nodded anyway, looking down at their hands, wishing just as he always did that Alec was by his side. "More than anything else, I wanted to thank you," Jace continued, his voice betraying an emotion that Magnus couldn't seem to pin down. "For everything you did for us, but especially for everything you did for Alec," he clarified, seeing the confusion on Magnus's face. For several moments, Magnus was speechless, completely caught off guard by what Jace was saying. Even when Alec had died, their final conversation had been about their love for one another, not anything like what Jace was trying to get at.

"You don't have to thank me, Jace," Magnus finally said, his voice tight and controlled. There was no way he could break down now, there was no way he would allow himself to show the emotion until he was alone once more. Through the loss of almost everyone he loved, Magnus had been the strong one, and there was no way he was going to stop that now. "I loved Alec more than I've ever loved anyone. I became part of this family, which was something I never expected, but this family became a part of me. You don't have to thank me for anything I ever did."

Jace smiled, his eyes sparkling in the same way they did in his youth, and Magnus felt a pang in his chest at the thought of it. "You never had to do any of it. Yet you protected Alec when I couldn't, you were there for him when I wasn't, and I can never thank you enough for that." Jace's voice caught on Alec's name, and Magnus was surprised to hear the sorrow in his voice. Jace had never been one for self-pitying, and Magnus couldn't see why this moment was different than any moment before.

Magnus started to tell him that there was no need for him to feel regret, that he had always done everything he could for Alec, but Jace spoke up once more before he could say anything at all. "It always looked like Alec cared more about me than I cared about him, but I need someone to understand that that wasn't the case." Magnus smiled as warmly as he could, hearing how labored Jace's breathing was becoming. "I built up walls because I thought that no one could ever love me. When Alec proved that wrong, I didn't know how to respond, I didn't know how to show him that I loved him as well."

Jace took several deep breaths, his breathing much harder than it should have been, and Magnus knew that their time was running out. "I know that Alec thought that the first person I ever really loved other than myself was Clary. But the way I reacted with Clary, the protection I tried to give her, it wasn't just for her. I was trying to keep Alec and Izzy safe as well, I was trying to keep them from getting into something they couldn't get themselves out of. But you filled in the gaps that I left, and I need to thank you for that before I leave."

Magnus sat for several seconds, trying to process the things that Jace was telling him. "You need to rest, Jace," was all Magnus could find in himself to say. "You're straining yourself, and you need to rest. I understand what you're trying to tell me, I really do. Now lie down, please." Magnus reached to help Jace lie back down, but when Magnus tried to turn to leave, Jace reached for his hand once more. Jace didn't need to ask for Magnus to know that he wanted Magnus to stay with him.

"I thought I loved Alec," Jace said, his voice much quieter than it had been. "But then I watched the way you loved him, the way you took care of him, and I knew that my love for him only scratched the surface." Magnus fought the tears he knew were inevitable, trying his hardest to keep from upsetting Jace, but he smiled when Jace seemed to read his mind. "You don't have to hide your emotions right now, Magnus. I know this has to be hard for you." Magnus gave Jace's hand a gentle squeeze, trying to thank Jace without saying anything at all.

"Alec knew you loved him," Magnus finally responded, his voice soft with pain. "You took much better care of him than you give yourself credit for. I'm the one who needs to thank you." The tears began silently streaming down Magnus's face when Jace smiled at that. There was nothing Magnus could do any more to keep his emotions at bay. "There's just one last thing I need to ask of you, Jace," Magnus said, willing himself to keep going for as long as he possibly could. "Promise me that you'll take care of Alexander for me," Magnus finished, his tears coming in full force when Jace reached up to wipe them away.

At this point, the only thing Jace still had the strength to do was to nod, the emotion showing in his eyes. "I'll take care of the kids," Magnus promised, even though he knew they weren't kids anymore. When Jace shut his eyes shortly after that, Magnus had to force himself to stay in the room, knowing that he couldn't leave Jace until he was gone. It seemed like hours later when Rafael came in and led him out of the room, somehow knowing that Magnus couldn't find it in himself to leave.

The last thing Magnus wanted to do was to stay in the Institute, but Magnus inexplicably found himself walking toward Alec's old room, drawn by the pain to the one place that would remind him the most of his late husband. He didn't know he was still crying until Rafael reached up to wipe the tears away, sitting down on Alec's bed beside of him. "Rest, Papa," he said as Max came in the room as well. "You've taken care of too many people, now it's time to let us take care of you." The only thing Magnus could do was lie down and allow his sons to sit with him until sleep came, silently praying that the next day would diminish the pain in any way.


End file.
